Reducing AWS Data Transfer Cost for AWS S3 files

Question

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?

Answer 1

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:

• ActivateAmazon 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.