A method that enables a client to see if a server can accept a request before actually sending it. For large PUTs, this can save both time and bandwidth charges.

AWS account associated with a particular developer.

The process of proving your identity to the system.

A container for objects stored in Amazon S3. Every object is contained within a bucket. For example, if the object named photos/puppy.jpg is stored in the johnsmith bucket, then it is addressable using the URL http://johnsmith.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/puppy.jpg

A standard access control policy that you can apply to a bucket or object. Options include: private, public-read, public-read-write, authenticated-read.

The process of converting data into a standard format that will be recognized by a service such as Amazon S3.

The method through which Amazon S3 achieves high availability, which involves replicating data across multiple servers within Amazon's data centers. After a "success" is returned, your data is safely stored. However, information about the changes might not immediately replicate across Amazon S3.

A Delete Marker is an object with a key and version ID but it has no content. Amazon S3 inserts Delete Markers automatically into buckets when a DELETE request is executed on an object in a bucket where Versioning is enabled.

A permission that defaults to DENY.

The unique identifier for an object within a bucket. Every object in a bucket has exactly one key. Since a bucket and key together uniquely identify each object, Amazon S3 can be thought of as a basic data map between "bucket + key" and the object itself. Every object in Amazon S3 can be uniquely addressed through the combination of the web service endpoint, bucket name, and key, as in http://doc.s3.amazonaws.com/2006-03-01/AmazonS3.wsdl, where "doc" is the name of the bucket, and "2006-03-01/AmazonS3.wsdl" is the key.

The metadata is a set of name-value pairs that describe the object. These include default metadata such as the date last modified and standard HTTP metadata such as Content-Type. The developer can also specify custom metadata at the time the Object is stored.

A null object is one whose version ID is null. Amazon S3 adds a null object to a bucket when version for that bucket is suspended. It is possible to have only one null object for each key in a bucket.

The fundamental entities stored in Amazon S3. Objects consist of object data and metadata. The data portion is opaque to Amazon S3.

A contiguous portion of object's data. The Amazon S3 multipart upload feature allows larger objects to be uploaded in parts. These object parts can be uploaded independently and in any order. If transmission of any part fails, that part can be retransmitted without affecting other parts. After all the object parts are uploaded, Amazon S3 assembles these parts and creates the object.

The host and port with which you are trying to communicate within the destination URL. For virtual hosted-style requests, this is mybucket.s3.amazonaws.com. For path-style requests, this is s3.amazonaws.com

Every object in Amazon S3 has a key and a version ID. Objects with the same key but different version IDs can be stored in the same bucket. Versioning is enabled at the bucket layer using PUT Bucket versioning.