FTP on AWS Cloud using AWS S3

File Transfer is the most important task when you do any business within your multiple offices or with the client or vendors. There are many ways and means to do the File/data transfer across the each other. But all you need is the security and the convenience of the data transfer. The convenient way to do the File/Data transfer is to configure the in-premises FTP server and share the credentials with vendor or Client to upload or download the data. There are many drawbacks in this old methodology, but it is the simplest solution available. Many companies are using the Google Drive, Dropbox, and other online services to move the data, but the paying huge money for such services too. The options to avail the service from Dropbox enterprise or Google Drive enterprise is fixed space with the fixed price. The more you need, the more you need to pay for fixed size. This becomes cumbersome when it reaches the limit of the data storage. Instead of using such paid service, if we use
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DigitalOcen's Spaces, Online storage made life easy for developers


History

 I do remember the time when I was trying to install and configure 20GB HDD in the stack of tower computer to make it available in the RAID. There was a request to make minimum 70GB data storage for one of the projects in the company. By using 5 number of 20GB HDD, I was able to configure the RAID - 5 to make the total space of 73GB available to store the data. The concept of RAID was new it was a Hardware RAID, needs a special RAID controller and Hard Drives to use the RAID technology.

Most importantly, it took me the entire day to configure the RAID and almost another day to make it accessible on the network for all users. The story doesn't end there, there were complaints about the read-write is slow on available network space than the local drive. This issue due to 10Mbps support LAN and broadcasting, that took another month to identified and address in detail.

Out of 73GB available space, the company was using 50-55% disk space only. Rest was for the future project, which never turns up. In short, to create a Network Disk Space was time-consuming to configure, cumbersome, very high in cost and not enough flexible to increase or decrease the size of the disk without RAID configuration again.    

These are the early days' story of the year 2000. Time passed fast and the technology and storage revolution change the demand and availability of the space. Companies were spending the high amount of money on local storage like NAS and SAN boxes from Dell-EMC, IBM, and other local hardware providers.  

Cloud Storage

When it comes to storing (important) data, many companies were shying away from the Cloud due to uncertainty and fear of loss of data. Apart from these fear, Security was the major concern when the Cloud or Hybrid cloud storage was launched. But that has changed now, since the launch of the AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service), the companies are using the Cloud to store their company data. It was used for Disaster Recovery (DR activity) purpose only, but the availability and accessibility of the Cloud storage services force user or companies to think the Cloud storage for primary storage purpose.

This trend shows, the demand for the Cloud storage is increasing compared to the local hardware base storage. The cloud services are expanding with the advance cloning features, availability, flexible on-demand options and secure compliance options. This attracts the non-IT companies like Auto, Pharma, Agriculture, and commerce to use the Cloud storage.

The biggest advantages of using the Cloud Storage is cost. All Cloud service providers AWS, Azure, IBM etc are providing IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and Pay-As-You-Use module to set the price.

AWS S3 was most popular in the market and most developers are using the AWS S3 in their product architecture. Azure File Storage came late in the cloud market but claimed to be the most simple and advances for all types of the file storage. IBM Cloud Storage and Google Cloud storage is seemed more robust with the technology but less popular compare any other Cloud Storage providers.

DigitalOcen's Spaces



Setting the Cloud storage competition alive, DigitalOcean has launched their 1st Storage service named Spaces. It is the Simple, Standalone storage solution for developers to store any amount of data with automatic scalability, performance, and reliability.

The DigitalOcean has launched the Spaces in NYC3 Region only and planning to roll out in AMS3 region soon.



Ease of Use

AWS S3 has very advance GUI tool which can give a better view and configuration panel to create Bucket (Storage folder name in AWS) to keep any data up to 5GB of single file size. The access to the data is available through web GUI as well as AWS CLI or API options. Any Secure FTP will allow the access to AWS S3 for larger upload or download the files.

Microsoft Azure seems simple and innovative way to create the File Storage and use for any project-developer. The Azure File Storage can be accessed from the web browser and/or any Windows, Linux or Mac platform using the CLI or API tools. 

IBM Data Storage and Big Data Storage seems complex but has more features compared to any Cloud services. IBM uses the most advanced technology and AI to secure the data stored on the Data Storage.

DigitalOceans Spaces has the fastest way to create the storage space available on the cloud. Just 2 clicks to create Storage from web access portal. DigitalOcean's Spaces supports third-party GUI applications like Transmit 4 (Mac) and Cyberduck 6.2.x (Windows and Mac) to upload more than 100 files or 2GB of the file.

Price point

Compare to all AWS and Azure are almost same when it comes to the pricing, $0.023 per GB for AWS S3 and $0.0236 for (up to) 50TB storage. IBM at higher end costing $0.0318 for (up to) 499TB. Having said about the capacity, very few companies are using the 50TB or 500TB storage over the cloud. The price seems low, but it has the other components to get add when we start using the service. The mentioned cost doesn't have the data transfer rate and bandwidth rate. AWS is showing the lowest storage cost, but it has the Download data rates which are different than the upload data rates. More or less all Cloud Service providers are charging the same cost in that way.

DigitalOcean's Spaces price policy is fixed and simples as they are offering for their compute/Virtual Server business. DigitalOcean is offering Space, 250GB at $5 Per month, along with 1TB Outbound data transfer. In case of additional storage will cost $0.02 per GB and $0.01 per GB outbound data transfer. The biggest advantage of this simple storage pricing is they are offering unlimited upload without any extra cost.

Overall it looks DigitalOcean changing their technology to compete with other Cloud Service Providers. An advantage to DigitalOcean is they are coming up with an easy way to access/manage all assets in their cloud. DigitalOcean's Spaces may hit the existing storage market, especially the AWS S3 on price and ease of access front.

Stay tuned for 'How to use the DigitalOcean's Spaces and performance review' in next blog...







   

Location: Pune

Comments

  1. donnaj edwardsMarch 11, 2021 at 9:53 PM

    I just want to thank you for sharing your information and your site or blog this is simple but nice Information I’ve ever seen i like it i learn something today. MS Office Course Online

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