What Is The Advantage Of Amazon S3 File Hosting?
FastSpring InfoA user of the JoelOnSoftware forum recently posed this question. Since we use S3, we’ll explain how we see the advantages. For those who don’t know, at FastSpring we offer a fast, reliable, and secure global file distribution network which utilizes Amazon.com’s S3 bandwidth service to ensure your buyers have a smooth and trouble-free file download experience.
S3 has been great in our experience and according to a number of our clients. The biggest advantage is multiple servers. There are also some capabilities with S3 that would be a pain to implement by oneself. For trial downloads it isn’t an issue, but for post-purchase downloads, S3 makes it easier to do time and attempt limited downloads, so that you can give a customer a URL and not worry about it being posted or shared too much, as it will only work for a few days or attempts (configurable).
As Amazon continues to build out a network around the world, I think you could eventually see S3 being comparable to the distributed speed and quality of something like Akamai.
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February 5th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Note that Amazon CloudFront improves the offering significantly in terms of serving files. Lower latency due to edge servers nearer the user.
February 10th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Hi Richard,
In terms of public content such as CSS and graphics related to store designs, we are definitely interested in CloudFront.
For private / paid / downloadable content, only S3 currently supports access controls. Amazon has said in a FAQ that they intend to add access controls to CloudFront in the future.
In short, we are watching CloudFront closely, and think the biggest opportunity at the moment is with files related to store designs.
Ryan