Hello, and welcome to this very quick lecture where I want to give a brief introduction as to why there are so many different AWS storage services to choose from. As we know, more and more organizations are moving and migrating to the cloud, for the many benefits the cloud brings, such as flexibility, scalability, cost efficiencies, security, and more. AWS offers many different services that allows for almost any migration of a solution or new solution to exist, and take advantage of these benefits. This means that from a foundational and infrastructure as a service perspective, AWS has to provide services, components, and features that provide these core infrastructure elements, covering compute, storage, database, and network, and AWS does this very well. This course is going to focus on the storage element of these components. 

So, why does AWS provide so many different storage services, if all you need to do is store your data in the cloud? Well, it's effectively the same reasons why you have range of storage products and solutions in your own on-premise environment. For example, you are likely using different storage devices, such as a storage area network, known as a SAN, network attached storage, known as a NAS, directly attached storage, and also taped backup, to name but a few. Now, for this course, it's not important to understand in detail what each of these solutions are and do, however, the point I'm trying to make here is that they all perform the same function, the ability to store data. But at the same time, each solution also provides different benefits and features, such as cost variants, storage capacity, security features, such as encryption and access control, varied levels of durability and availability, different read/write speeds, different accessibility options, different media types, some can be auditable and traceable, and also use case, such as backup and file storage. 

AWS is fully aware that not all of your data is to be treated exactly the same and that sometimes, data can require very specific requirements. This is the reason why AWS has so many different storage services available, to allow you to select the most appropriate service for your needs. Understanding which AWS storage can provide these features and more is critical to being able to select the most appropriate service, allowing you to implement an effective and efficient solution. Data storage can be categorized between block, file, and object storage. So, what's the difference between these and AWS? 

Block storage. Block storage stores the data in chunks of data known as blocks, and these blocks are stored in a volume, and attached to a single instance. They generally provide very low latency, and can be considered similar to your directly attached disks within your own data center. 

File storage. Your data is stored as separate files within a series of directories, forming a data structure hierarchy. The data is then stored on top of a file system, and provides shared access, allowing for multiple users to access the data. File storage in AWS can be associated to your network attached storage systems you may have in your own data center. 

Object Storage. Each object does not conform to a data structure hierarchy. Instead, it exists across a flat address space, and is referenced by a unique key. Each object can also have associated metadata to help categorize and identify the object. Now that you have an understanding of why AWS has curated and developed a range of storage services for you to select, let me now start by introducing each of these services to provide information on exactly what the service is and does, and highlighting its key features, and when and why you might select the service.