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We are using Amanda to send backups to S3. Each host is acting as its own Amanda "server".

All hosts are currently using the same S3-bucket -- each has its own subfolder under it. The dumps are saved with "REDUCED_REDUNDANCY" -- it is 20% cheaper and we consider it unlikely, that both the original host and the backups will disappear at once.

We do not currently specify, where the bucket is stored -- using whatever Amazon does by default.

Our EC2 systems are spread across different regions, however, and we are wondering, if, perhaps, we should use multiple buckets -- one explicitly created in each region storing dumps of hosts from another region. For example, make us-west-1 hosts send their dumps to the us-west-2 bucket (or even to us-east-1) -- to keep the backups available should Amazon lose a particular region entirely (both the EC2 virtual machines and S3 data).

Would that be useful, or is S3-data already mirrored to multiple regions by default? Will there be increased billing costs -- it is our understanding, that writing to S3 is free, and storage costs the same -- is that correct? Latency is of no particular concern -- as long as bandwidth remains decent.

Mikhail T.
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2 Answers2

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If you're using the default region US Standard, your files get (eventually) stored in both us-west-2b and us-east-1. This is the only region with this redundancy. All other regions store only to servers in that region, so you would have some additional safety by using a different region for backups - if a meteor takes out your Oregon servers, having backups in Virginia will be a happy thing to have planned ahead with.

Your bandwidth costs will change doing this, though, as traffic to S3 from a different region is billed at the "EC2->Internet" rates. Using US Standard will give you the best of both worlds - free transfer to S3 and the geographic redundancy.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/LocationSelection.html

ceejayoz
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s3 buckets are normally set for a particular region. When creating a bucket you can set it's region. You can set cross region replication as well. I don't think cross region replication is set by default.

With s3 you get charged for the amount you store, and the data transferred. You best look at the actual rates here: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/. There billing for s3 is generally cheap, but complicated.

Jordan Stewart
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