Chapter 1. Welcome to Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service: 2006-03-01

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Welcome to Amazon S3

Topics

Amazon S3 is a web service that enables you to store data in the cloud. You can then download the data or use the data with other AWS services, such as Amazon Elastic Cloud Computer (EC2).

This section describes who should read this guide, how the guide is organized, and other resources related to Amazon S3.

We hope you find the service to be easy-to-use, reliable, and inexpensive. If you want to provide feedback to the Amazon S3 development team, please post a message to the Amazon S3 Discussion Forum or the Feedback link at the top of every page in the HTML version of this guide.

Who Should Read this Guide

This guide has two audiences:

Developers creating libraries to implement the Amazon S3 API

This audience can use the programming guide to understand the concepts and functionality of Amazon S3 and the API reference to learn how the HTTP packets should look for particular operations.
Developers using libraries created to implement the Amazon S3 API

This audience should not bother reading the API reference but, instead, focus on the concepts and functionality of Amazon S3 so that you can better understand the third-party libraries written for Amazon S3. These developers typically build applications that store and retrieve data across the Internet.

Required Knowledge and Skills

Use of this guide assumes you are familiar with the following:

XML (go to W3 Schools XML Tutorial)
Basic understanding of web services (go to W3 Schools Web Services Tutorial))
A programming language for consuming a web service and any related tools

You should also have read the Amazon S3 Getting Started Guide. For more information, go to Amazon S3 Getting Started Guide.

How to Give Us Feedback

The online version of this guide provides a link at the top of each page that enables you to enter feedback about this guide. We strive to make our guides as complete, error free, and easy to read as possible. You can help by giving us feedback. Thank you in advance!

How This Guide Is Organized

This guide is organized into several major sections described in the following table.

Information	Relevant Sections
General information about Amazon S3	Introduction to Amazon S3
Conceptual information about Amazon S3	Introduction to Amazon S3
Information about making requests	Making Requests
Information about how to use the Amazon S3 REST operations	Common REST API Elements
Information about how to use the Amazon S3 SOAP operations	Common SOAP API Elements
Information about using DevPay with Amazon S3	Using Amazon DevPay with Amazon S3
Information about handling errors	Handling Errors
Information about BitTorrent	Using BitTorrent with Amazon S3
Typographic and symbol conventions	Document Conventions

Each section is written to stand on its own, so you should be able to look up the information you need and go back to work. However, you can also read through the major sections sequentially to get in-depth knowledge about the Amazon S3.

Amazon S3 Resources

Following is a table that lists related resources that you'll find useful as you work with this service.

Resource	Description
Amazon S3 Getting Started Guide	The Getting Started Guide provides a quick tutorial of the service based on a simple use case. Examples and instructions for Java, Perl, PHP, C#, Python, and Ruby are included.
Amazon S3 API Reference	The API Reference describes Amazon S3 operations in detail.
Amazon S3Technical FAQ	The FAQ covers the top 20 questions developers have asked about this product.
Amazon S3 Release Notes	The Release Notes give a high-level overview of the current release. They specifically note any new features, corrections, and known issues.
AWS Developer Resource Center	A central starting point to find documentation, code samples, release notes, and other information to help you build innovative applications with AWS.
AWS Management Console	The console allows you to perform most of the functions of Amazon S3without programming.
Discussion Forums	A community-based forum for developers to discuss technical questions related to Amazon Web Services.
AWS Support Center	The home page for AWS Technical Support, including access to our Developer Forums, Technical FAQs, Service Status page, and Premium Support.
AWS Premium Support	The primary web page for information about AWS Premium Support, a one-on-one, fast-response support channel to help you build and run applications on AWS Infrastructure Services.
Amazon S3 product information	The primary web page for information about Amazon S3.
Contact Us	A central contact point for inquiries concerning AWS billing, account, events, abuse etc.
Conditions of Use	Detailed information about the copyright and trademark usage at Amazon.com and other topics.

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