Reducing AWS Data Transfer Cost for AWS S3 files

0
votes

AWS S3 has a standard public bucket and folder (Asia Pacific region) which hosts ~30 GB of images/media. On another hand, the website and app access these images by using a direct S3 object URL. Unknowingly we run into high data transfer cost and its significantly unproportionate:

  1. Amazon Simple Storage Service: USD 30
  2. AWS Data Transfer: USD 110

I have also read that if EC2 and S3 is in the same region cost will be significantly lower, but problem is S3 objects are accessible from anywhere in the world from client machine directly and no EC2 is involved in between.

Can someone please suggest how can data transfer costs be reduced?

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amazon-web-servicesamazon-ec2
Could you please clarify -- are the objects in Amazon S3 being accessed by end users in the browser, or are they being used by the Amazon EC2 instances (without going out to end users)? - John Rotenstein
Please clarify what the USD 30 charge is relating to. Is it just storage & request charges? Are you only concerned about the Data Transfer charge? What do you mean by "significantly unproportionate"? - John Rotenstein
Hello John, objects in s3 buckets are public and accessed by website, this website is accessed by end user without authentication. USD 30 was just S3 storage cost and I am concerned about data transfer charges. - Test

1 Answers

2
votes

The Data Transfer charge is directly related to the amount of information that goes from AWS to the Internet. Depending on your region, it is typically charged at 9c/GB.

If you are concerned about the Data Transfer charge, there are a few things you could do:

  • Activate Amazon S3 Server Access Logging, which will create a log file for each web request. You can then see how many requests are coming and possibly detect strange access behaviour (eg bots, search engines, abuse).
  • You could try reducing the size of files that are typically accessed, such as making images smaller. Take a look at the Access Logs and determine which objects are being accessed the most, and are therefore causing the most costs.
  • Use less large files on your website (eg videos). Again, look at the Access Logs to determine where the data is being used.

A cost of $110 suggests about 1.2TB of data being transferred.