Getting started with AWS DataSync

Before you get started with AWS DataSync, you need to sign up for an AWS account if you don't have one. We also recommend learning where DataSync can be used and how much it might cost to transfer your data.

Sign up for an AWS account

If you do not have an AWS account, complete the following steps to create one.

To sign up for an AWS account

1. Open https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup.

2. Follow the online instructions.

   Part of the sign-up procedure involves receiving a phone call and entering a verification code on the phone keypad.

   When you sign up for an AWS account, an AWS account root user is created. The root user has access to all AWS services and resources in the account. As a security best practice, assign administrative access to a user, and use only the root user to perform tasks that require root user access.

AWS sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to https://aws.amazon.com/ and choosing My Account.

Create a user with administrative access

After you sign up for an AWS account, secure your AWS account root user, enable AWS IAM Identity Center, and create an administrative user so that you don't use the root user for everyday tasks.

Secure your AWS account root user

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console as the account owner by choosing Root user and entering your AWS account email address. On the next page, enter your password.

   For help signing in by using root user, see Signing in as the root user in the AWS Sign-In User Guide.

2. Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) for your root user.

   For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for your AWS account root user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

Create a user with administrative access

1. Enable IAM Identity Center.

   For instructions, see Enabling AWS IAM Identity Center in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

2. In IAM Identity Center, grant administrative access to a user.

   For a tutorial about using the IAM Identity Center directory as your identity source, see Configure user access with the default IAM Identity Center directory in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

Sign in as the user with administrative access

• To sign in with your IAM Identity Center user, use the sign-in URL that was sent to your email address when you created the IAM Identity Center user.

  For help signing in using an IAM Identity Center user, see Signing in to the AWS access portal in the AWS Sign-In User Guide.

Assign access to additional users

1. In IAM Identity Center, create a permission set that follows the best practice of applying least-privilege permissions.

   For instructions, see Create a permission set in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

2. Assign users to a group, and then assign single sign-on access to the group.

   For instructions, see Add groups in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

Required IAM permissions for using DataSync

DataSync can transfer your data to an Amazon S3 bucket, Amazon EFS file system, or a number of other AWS storage services. To get your data where you want it to go, you need the right IAM permissions granted to your identity. For example, the IAM role that you use with DataSync needs permission to use the Amazon S3 operations required to transfer data to an S3 bucket.

You can grant these permissions with IAM policies provided by AWS or by creating your own policies.

Contents

• AWS managed policies
• Customer managed policies

AWS managed policies

AWS provides the following managed policies for common DataSync use cases:

• AWSDataSyncReadOnlyAccess – Provides read-only access to DataSync.

• AWSDataSyncFullAccess – Provides full access to DataSync and minimal access to its dependencies.

For more information, see AWS managed policies for AWS DataSync.

Customer managed policies

You can create custom IAM policies to use with DataSync. For more information, see IAM customer managed policies for AWS DataSync.

Where can I use DataSync?

For a list of AWS Regions and endpoints that DataSync supports, see AWS DataSync endpoints and quotas in the AWS General Reference.

How can I use DataSync?

There are several ways to use DataSync:

• DataSync console, which is part of the AWS Management Console.

• DataSync API or the AWS CLI to programmatically configure and manage DataSync.

• AWS CloudFormation or Terraform to provision your DataSync resources.

• AWS SDKs to build applications that use DataSync.

How much will DataSync cost?

On the DataSync pricing page, create a custom estimate using the amount of data that you plan to transfer.

Open-source components used by DataSync

To view the open-source components used by DataSync, download the following link:

• datasync-open-source-components.zip