15. Transfer Acceleration

S3 Transfer Acceleration utilises the CloudFront edge network to accelerate the uploads to S3. Instead of uploading directly to S3 bucket, we can use a distinct URL to upload directly to an edge location which will then transfer that file to S3. We will get a distinct URL to upload to: abc.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com

Question 1:
A news network uses Amazon S3 to aggregate the raw video footage from its reporting teams across the US. The news network has recently expanded into new geographies in Europe and Asia. The technical teams at the overseas branch offices have reported huge delays in uploading large video files to the destination S3 bucket.
Which of the following are the MOST cost-effective options to improve the file upload speed into S3? (Select two)
Options:
A. Create multiple site-to-site VPN connections between the AWS Cloud and branch offices in Europe and Asia. Use these VPN connections for faster file uploads into S3
B. Use AWS Global Accelerator for faster file uploads into the destination S3 bucket
C. Use Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration to enable faster file uploads into the destination S3 bucket
D. Create multiple AWS direct connect connections between the AWS Cloud and branch offices in Europe and Asia. Use the direct connect connections for faster file uploads into S3
E. Use multipart uploads for faster file uploads into the destination S3 bucket
Answer: C & E
Explanation
Correct options:
Use Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration to enable faster file uploads into the destination S3 bucket – Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration enables fast, easy, and secure transfers of files over long distances between your client and an S3 bucket. Transfer Acceleration takes advantage of Amazon CloudFront’s globally distributed edge locations. As the data arrives at an edge location, data is routed to Amazon S3 over an optimized network path.
Use multipart uploads for faster file uploads into the destination S3 bucket – Multipart upload allows you to upload a single object as a set of parts. Each part is a contiguous portion of the object’s data. You can upload these object parts independently and in any order. If transmission of any part fails, you can retransmit that part without affecting other parts. After all parts of your object are uploaded, Amazon S3 assembles these parts and creates the object. In general, when your object size reaches 100 MB, you should consider using multipart uploads instead of uploading the object in a single operation. Multipart upload provides improved throughput, therefore it facilitates faster file uploads.
Incorrect options:
Create multiple AWS direct connect connections between the AWS Cloud and branch offices in Europe and Asia. Use the direct connect connections for faster file uploads into S3 – AWS Direct Connect is a cloud service solution that makes it easy to establish a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS. AWS Direct Connect lets you establish a dedicated network connection between your network and one of the AWS Direct Connect locations. Direct connect takes significant time (several months) to be provisioned and is an overkill for the given use-case.
Create multiple site-to-site VPN connections between the AWS Cloud and branch offices in Europe and Asia. Use these VPN connections for faster file uploads into S3 – AWS Site-to-Site VPN enables you to securely connect your on-premises network or branch office site to your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC). You can securely extend your data center or branch office network to the cloud with an AWS Site-to-Site VPN connection. A VPC VPN Connection utilizes IPSec to establish encrypted network connectivity between your intranet and Amazon VPC over the Internet. VPN Connections are a good solution if you have low to modest bandwidth requirements and can tolerate the inherent variability in Internet-based connectivity. Site-to-site VPN will not help in accelerating the file transfer speeds into S3 for the given use-case.
Use AWS Global Accelerator for faster file uploads into the destination S3 bucket – AWS Global Accelerator is a service that improves the availability and performance of your applications with local or global users. It provides static IP addresses that act as a fixed entry point to your application endpoints in a single or multiple AWS Regions, such as your Application Load Balancers, Network Load Balancers or Amazon EC2 instances. AWS Global Accelerator will not help in accelerating the file transfer speeds into S3 for the given use-case.

Question 2:
A junior scientist working with the Deep Space Research Laboratory at NASA is trying to upload a high-resolution image of a nebula into Amazon S3. The image size is approximately 3GB. The junior scientist is using S3 Transfer Acceleration (S3TA) for faster image upload. It turns out that S3TA did not result in an accelerated transfer.
Given this scenario, which of the following is correct regarding the charges for this image transfer?
Options:
A. The junior scientist only needs to pay S3 transfer charges for the image upload
B. The junior scientist does not need to pay any transfer charges for the image upload
C. The junior scientist needs to pay both S3 transfer charges and S3TA transfer charges for the image upload
D. The junior scientist only needs to pay S3TA transfer charges for the image upload
Answer: B
Explanation
Correct option:
The junior scientist does not need to pay any transfer charges for the image upload
There are no S3 data transfer charges when data is transferred in from the internet. Also with S3TA, you pay only for transfers that are accelerated. Therefore the junior scientist does not need to pay any transfer charges for the image upload because S3TA did not result in an accelerated transfer.
Incorrect options:
The junior scientist only needs to pay S3TA transfer charges for the image upload – Since S3TA did not result in an accelerated transfer, there are no S3TA transfer charges to be paid.
The junior scientist only needs to pay S3 transfer charges for the image upload – There are no S3 data transfer charges when data is transferred in from the internet. So this option is incorrect.
The junior scientist needs to pay both S3 transfer charges and S3TA transfer charges for the image upload – There are no S3 data transfer charges when data is transferred in from the internet. Since S3TA did not result in an accelerated transfer, there are no S3TA transfer charges to be paid.

Question 3:
A media startup is looking at hosting their web application on AWS Cloud. The application will be accessed by users from different geographic regions of the world. The main feature of the application requires the upload and download of video files that can reach a maximum size of 10GB. The startup wants the solution to be cost-effective and scalable with the lowest possible latency for a great user experience.
As a Solutions Architect, which of the following will you suggest as an optimal solution to meet the given requirements?
Options:
A• Use Amazon EC2 with Global Accelerator for faster distribution of content, while using Amazon S3 as storage service
B• Use Amazon EC2 with ElastiCache for faster distribution of content, while Amazon S3 can be used as a storage service
C• Use Amazon S3 for hosting the web application and use S3 Transfer Acceleration to reduce the latency that geographically dispersed users might face
D• Use Amazon S3 for hosting the web application and use Amazon CloudFront for faster distribution of content to geographically dispersed users
Answer: C
Explanation
Correct option:
Use Amazon S3 for hosting the web application and use S3 Transfer Acceleration to reduce the latency that geographically dispersed users might face
Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration can speed up content transfers to and from Amazon S3 by as much as 50-500% for long-distance transfer of larger objects. Customers who have either web or mobile applications with widespread users or applications hosted far away from their S3 bucket can experience long and variable upload and download speeds over the Internet. S3 Transfer Acceleration (S3TA) reduces the variability in Internet routing, congestion, and speeds that can affect transfers, and logically shortens the distance to S3 for remote applications.
S3TA improves transfer performance by routing traffic through Amazon CloudFront’s globally distributed Edge Locations and over AWS backbone networks, and by using network protocol optimizations.
For applications interacting with your S3 buckets through the S3 API from outside of your bucket’s region, S3TA helps avoid the variability in Internet routing and congestion. It does this by routing your uploads and downloads over the AWS global network infrastructure, so you get the benefit of AWS network optimizations.
Incorrect options:
Use Amazon S3 for hosting the web application and use Amazon CloudFront for faster distribution of content to geographically dispersed users – Amazon S3 with CloudFront is a very powerful way of distributing static content to geographically dispersed users with low latency speeds. If you have objects that are smaller than 1GB or if the data set is less than 1GB in size, you should consider using Amazon CloudFront’s PUT/POST commands for optimal performance. The given use case has data larger than 1GB and hence S3 Transfer Acceleration is a better option.
via – https://aws.amazon.com/s3/faqs/
Use Amazon EC2 with Global Accelerator for faster distribution of content, while using Amazon S3 as storage service – AWS Global Accelerator is a networking service that sends your user’s traffic through Amazon Web Service’s global network infrastructure, improving your internet user performance by up to 60%. With Global Accelerator, you are provided two global static customer-facing IPs to simplify traffic management. On the back end, add or remove your AWS application origins, such as Network Load Balancers, Application Load Balancers, Elastic IPs, and EC2 Instances, without making user-facing changes. As discussed, Global Accelerator is meant for a different use case and is not meant for increasing the speed of S3 uploads or downloads.
Use Amazon EC2 with ElastiCache for faster distribution of content, while Amazon S3 can be used as a storage service – Amazon ElastiCache allows you to seamlessly set up, run, and scale popular open-Source compatible in-memory data stores in the cloud. Build data-intensive apps or boost the performance of your existing databases by retrieving data from high throughput and low latency in-memory data stores. Amazon ElastiCache is a popular choice for real-time use cases like Caching, Session Stores, Gaming, Geospatial Services, Real-Time Analytics, and Queuing. S3 Transfer Acceleration is a better performing option than opting for EC2 with ElastiCache, which is not meant to address the given use-case.