What is Amazon S3?
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), provides developers and IT teams with secure, durable, highly-scalable object storage. Amazon S3 is easy to use, with a simple web services interface to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web.
Do I need this?
If you run a small to medium website of static files, then probably the answer is No. But if you have a large amount of data such as audio files, videos and movies, then you will want to consider using Amazon S3.
Not only does Amazon S3 give you unlimited storage, you also receive huge speed benefits for people accessing your content around the world. You may notice that certain websites take longer to load because the website is being hosted in a foreign country on the other side of the world. Amazon S3 makes accessing your files, music and videos fast no matter where you are.
How does it work?
LargeFS is a new feature that was created by WP Engine that we leverage to move your files seamlessly from your web server to Amazon S3. This technology was developed to store and transfer huge amounts of data, and integrate it into the standard WordPress experience.
We built LargeFS using Amazon S3, the industry-standard mechanism for storing and serving any number of files of any size, from 10 million icons to a million movies. It’s inexpensive and bills per-use. And because S3 is already redundant, it also solves the issue of backup. S3 really is the perfect tool for storing and serving large files or large quantities of files.
Basically, LargeFS is a way to expand your server storage from your normal server onto S3, where storage is practically infinite. Just like the rest of our infrastructure, LargeFS is fully managed by Easy Cloud Solutions — all you have to do is submit a request and we will create/manage an S3 account for your website.
How LargeFS works:
- We transparently move content off the server’s filesystem onto S3. This happens during low-traffic periods and is fully automated.
- We move files only once they’re sufficiently old, so it doesn’t interfere with other server operations and plugins.
- Our fast, front-end caching load balancers understand which paths are controlled by LargeFS, and automatically serve content either from the server’s filesystem or from S3, depending on where the file is.
- Uploading new files or modifying files are available instantly; there’s no lag and no caching delay.
- Larger files are 301′ed directly to S3 for better throughput and scalability under traffic loads, and also those URLs in HTML are automatically rewritten to go straight to S3, so under normal conditions this is as fast as possible for the end user.
- Smaller files which are accessed frequently are automatically cached by our caching load-balancers and will also be placed on our CDN automatically, so popular content is as fast as possible and doesn’t have any of the speed issues with S3.
- All of the above is tunable for specific customers, and even for specific paths within an installation.
Unlimited Means Unlimited Again
What this means for you is that any hosting plan at Easy Cloud Solutions literally has unlimited space. “Unlimited” has become a hosting buzzword that doesn’t mean anything because in many cases, and on many hosts, “unlimited” simply wasn’t. There was a file limit to your plan and you hoped you never ran into it. With LargeFS, we’re “re-claiming” the word unlimited, and adding yet one more feature to our already industry-leading Managed WordPress Hosting Platform.
I’m interested. What’s the next step?
The great news is that you don’t need to do anything except submitting a request to configure this for you.
Will my bill go up?
Minimally. You only have to pay for what you use.
