AWS S3 Interface Options

Customers around the world use Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets to store their data for websites, cloud-native applications, mobile apps and more. S3 offers scalability, high availability, and security. You can optimize costs using an array of service levels and use access controls to satisfy business, organizational, and compliance needs. Beyond the basics of storage, though, S3 offers more. A major advantage lies in AWS S3 interface options. We’ll outline them to help you choose how you integrate S3 into your cloud strategy.

AWS Console

In the beginning, you’ll probably use the Amazon S3 console to view your buckets and files. You can see storage classes, encryption settings, and metadata. The primary limitation of using the console is that it requires console access, something reserved for administrators.

Cloud Tools

You can create S3 access points to enable data access for AWS services or customer applications that need data stored in buckets. Access points are simply named network endpoints for buckets. You may find a wide variety of applications and cloud tools that can tap into your S3 end points.

S3 Command Line Interface (CLI)

You can also access Amazon S3 using the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). CLI allows administrators to create & remove buckets and manage files/objects using a high-level set of commands. There’s also an API interface for CLI to perform more advanced S3 bucket management tasks.

Amazon S3 API

It’s also possible to interact with AWS S3 using Amazon S3 APIs. SOAP (over https) and REST interfaces enable you to build applications that store, list, retrieve, move, and delete S3 objects. You can choose to build interfaces using any number of programming languages, such as Java, Python, or PHP. API calls can be authenticated or anonymous, adding flexibility to your implementation.

Desktop Tools

If you search online, you’ll find a wide range of additional S3 browsers. S3 users can download one for Mac or Windows, and administrators can enable remote S3 file management by sharing the S3 buckets with these users. Although these desktop tools help users manage files in buckets, the obvious challenge is supporting third-party downloadable files for end users.

Browser Tools

You will also find browser-based tools that can access S3. Webapper developed CloudSee Drive for this express reason: users need a simple interface to S3, while administrators want a simple, secure way to provide it. CloudSee Drive runs in a browser, works on mobile devices, and facilitates searching, browsing, uploading, creating folders, and tagging objects. Browser-based tools like CloudSee Drive are typically SaaS, offering subscription services that require no downloads and minimal AWS configuration.

Choosing from AWS S3 Interface Options

We advocate choosing the right tool for any job. If you’re building your own applications, for example, the AWS S3 API is probably a good option. If you need to provide a simple way for end users to manage content in buckets, you may want to try CloudSee Drive. No matter which path you take, we recommend checking your S3 security too. In the end, S3 gives us many ways to store and manage assets — it’s up to us to select the best S3 interface options for our particular needs.