Category: Cloud
Enable Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) on Amazon S3 Buckets With Bucket Explorer to Build Rich Client Web Applications
Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) offers a way for client web applications loaded in one domain to interact with resources in a different domain. With CORS support, you can build rich client-side web applications with Amazon S3 and allow cross-origin access to your Amazon S3 resources.
Good news for you is that now Bucket Explorer supports CORS and you can very easily configure your S3 Buckets to use CORS with few clicks.
Amazon S3 CORS Cross Origin Resource Sharing
With CORS support, you can build web applications that use JavaScript and HTML5, to interact directly with resources in Amazon S3 without the need for a proxy server. With this feature, external web pages, style sheets and HTML5 applications hosted in different domains can now reference resources like web fonts and images stored within an S3 bucket. This means now you can store such resources at one location, on S3, and share across multiple web sites.
Try Bucket Explorer today. Let us know your feedback as we always want to hear how we can tailor our product more to meet your needs.
New “Multipart Copy / Move” Feature To Copy and Move Large Amazon S3 Objects Fast, in Smaller Parts
Bucket Explorer has been supporting Multipart Upload and Multipart Download operations to upload and download large S3 Objects for a long time. Now, you can also Copy and Move large S3 Objects with Bucket Explorer’s new Multipart Copy/ New feature.
Using Multipart operations supported by Bucket Explorer, you can Upload, Download and now Copy and Move large Amazon S3 Objects fast, by performing the operation on a set of smaller parts of that object. When the operation is completed for all parts, Amazon S3 shows that object as one single object.
The greatest benefits of Multipart Operations are:
- You can perform the Upload/ Download/ Copy/ Move of the smaller parts of S3 Objects in parallel.
- If a part fails, you can restart the Multipart Operation on that specific part.
- You can pause the Multipart Operation on an individual part, without cancelling the entire Multipart Operation.
- You can Upload/ Download/ Copy/ Move a large S3 Object without knowing about the exact size of the object.
- If you cancel the Multipart Upload, you will no longer be billed for the parts which were stored on S3.
Amazon S3 Multipart Copy and Move Operation
Download new version of Bucket Explorer to try this feature out.
Deliver Fast and Personalized Content To Your Customers With Amazon CloudFront HTTP Cookies Support
In our last blog, we mentioned that Bucket Explorer now supports Amazon CloudFront Distribution Cookies. In fact, Amazon has also announced Bucket Explorer’e readiness for this features. Read on- AWS TypePad.
With this HTTP Cookies support, it becomes very easy to deliver personalized content for your customers, with enhanced performance.
You can now forward None, Selective or All Cookies to your custom origin server. Amazon CloudFront considers these forwarded cookie values in identifying a unique object in its cache. It helps end-user receive customized content with cookies as well as performance advantages. There are three modes for cookies supports- 1. ALL 2. White Listed Name 3. None
Select Amazon CloudFront Distribution Type- Download Or Streaming
Amazon CloudFront Cache Behavior With CookiesSupport
Using these settings, you can forward all, whitelisted or none of the cookies to your Custom Origin Servers from CloudFront.
You can select these options from Cache Behavior step of Create Distribution Wizard in Bucket Explorer. If you select White List option then you will also need to prepare White Listed Name.
Download Bucket Explorer today and get running with the use of Amazon S3 and CloudFront.
Several Easy Options to Set Metadata on Amazon S3 Objects
There have been multiple questions raised by Amazon S3 users on how to set Amazon S3 Objects Metadata during and after uploading S3 objects. After reading these questions on different sites, we thought of collectively describing several “S3 Objects Metadata Update” related features offered by Bucket Explorer for you.
Amazon S3 stores two types of metadata on S3 Objects, Standard HTTP headers ( System Metadata- ETag, Content-Length etc.) and Custom user defined metadata. Storing metadata could be very valuable for identifying different types of objects for purposes like content delivery, media applications, backup and archiving, and many other application types. Some of the examples of metadata you can store are-
- Data types like image, video or document
- Dates the object was created, accessed, or modified
- Subject or categories
You can pass some initial metadata while uploading an object, however if needed in future, you can update that metadata very quickly using Bucket Explorer without having to upload the documents again.
Let us see the features that Bucket Explorer offers to update metadata for Amazon S3 Objects.
- Upload S3 Object With Default Metadata
- Upload With Content Type as Text/ HTML
- Upload With Custom Header
- Upload As Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS)
- Set Bucket Default Metadata
- Bulk Update for Selected files/folders/Bucket
- Auto Content Disposition
These multiple options offered by Bucket Explorer can definitely make your job of managing S3 Objects Metadata much easier.
Upload S3 Object With Default Metadata: When you upload selected files from the native file system, Bucket Explorer sets default system details with the file which is being uploaded.
Upload S3 Object As Html : Usually browsers do not allow you to open and read files like – doc, gif etc. within the browser. You are required to download such files from Amazon S3 to read those.
Bucket Explorer provides an option for you to ” Upload as HTML “. When you upload a file as HTML, the Content-Type of the file is set to text/html and you can open and read such files within the browser without having to download first.
Upload S3 Object With Custom Header : You can add your own metadata (user defined) with S3 Object while uploading a file using Bucket Explorer. You will need to add a key and value pair for the metadata.
Upload Amazon S3 Objects With User Defined Metadata
Upload as Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS) : Amazon S3 allows you to store your data in two modes:
- STANDARD
- Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS).
If your data can be regenerated or recollected easily or is not very critical, then you can set your S3 Object’s Storage Type as RRS. RRS is cheaper than Standard Storage type. Bucket Explorer allows you to upload your data to Amazon S3 with RRS mode setting.
If you want is not easily reproducible and you want to store in a more secured way, then your data storage type should be set to Standard.
Upload S3 Objects as Reduced Redundancy Storage, RRS
Set Bucket Default : Bucket Explorer allows you to set default metadata settings for a Bucket. By doing that, whenever you add a new S3 object on that S3 Bucket, Bucket Explorer applies default setting from the Bucket to the new files. Read more on How to set default metadata on bucket and How to set default permission for the bucket .
Bulk Update for Bucket/Folders/Files : Bucket Explorer provides you batch operations for Metadata also. You can update (Add New/Update Existing/Delete Existing) metadata on Bucket or Folder/ File level.
- Bucket Level : If you want to update metadata on all S3 objects in an S3 bucket, then you can update metadata at the Bucket Level. You can perform the batch operation from Bucket Toolbar.
- Folders/Files : If you want to udpate metadata on selected files and Folders, then you can update metadata in batch on all selected items from Object Toolbar.
Batch Update Amazon S3 Bucket Metadata
Auto Content Disposition : If you want your specific types of files stored on Amazon S3 to download instead of opening in browser, then you should use this feature of Bucket Explorer. This works contrary to “Upload as HTML” feature explained in this article above.
So, to wrap up, there are multiple easy ways available in Bucket Explorer User Interface, which allow you to manage your metadata.
If you find this information on updating Amazon S3 metadata useful and you want to explore more details, visit Bucket Explorer website. Feel free to contact us for any questions.
Work With Items in Your Domain in Amazon SimpleDB Using SDB Explorer
As we consistently strive to simplify the use of Amazon SimpleDB service, we are excited to share with you how you can manage your items in SimpleDB domains very conveniently using SDB Explorer. SDB Explorer allows you to perform fast and parallel edits in your data very easily, saving you time and money.
An Amazon SimpleDB domain is like a worksheet table. SDB Explorer provides a tabular view of your structured data Stored in SimpleDB domains. You can directly edit the data in table cells, without having to write any queries like we do in relational databases traditionally. You can double-click on the cell or press F2 key to edit the data in a cell. Once you are done with editing SDB Explorer marks that row as edited by putting an image in front of these rows.
Work With Items in Your Domain in Amazon SimpleDB
In prior versions of SDB Explorer it was difficult to add multiple rows of data as you could add one by one only and you had to remember the attributes for each row. Now you can add multiple blank rows as you desire so you can add data to these new rows by directly editing cells in these rows. SDB Explorer will also identify the new rows by putting an image in front of those rows.
You can Delete multiple rows on single request. You can select the multiple rows and click on delete button, SDB Explorer marks deleted rows by adding an image.
When you are done with all your edits, click on Save button to save your changes.
SDBExplorer uses “BatchPutAttribute” and “BatchDeleteAttribute” commands to Add, Update and Delete multiple rows with minimum possible requests, which saves you money.
Contact us if you like to share your thoughts. We always like to hear feedback on our work, so we can improve the product further for you.
Bucket Explorer Supports Amazon CloudFront’s Dynamic Content Delivery
We are extremely excited to announce the new release of Bucket Explorer, supporting Amazon CloudFront dynamic content delivery.
Your job has become much simpler if you are looking to deliver dynamic content using Amazon CloudFront.
Now you can deliver dynamic and static content from different origin servers within or outside AWS locations, using CloudFront. You can manage your content on different origin servers without having to create multiple distributions or manage multiple domain names.
This new feature offers an easy and cost-effective process to increase the performance, reliability and availability of your dynamic websites. Now CloudFront works seamlessly with Amazon EC2 running dynamic applications.
As always, we strive to offer AWS upgrades to Bucket Explorer users as soon as possible after Amazon announces. Try Bucket Explorer for Amazon CloudFront’s dynamic content delivery today!
Added benefits of delivering dynamic content using CloudFront :
- You can deliver static and dynamic content using CloudFront.
- Now you can manage your content at different origin servers. You do not need to create separate distribution for each origin location.
- CloudFront supports Query String now, which helps you customize web pages for each viewer.
- Now you can control how you want Amazon CloudFront to cache different portions of your website.
Download the latest version of BucketExplorer for more new features.
Quick Search on Amazon SimpleDB Domain With SDB Explorer
The new version of SDB Explorer improves your experience with Amazon SimpleDB further with new, quick and easy search .
Now you can perform quick searches on your SimpleDB domain by simply typing the first few characters of your search word. SDB Explorer searches for the characters across all the fields of the domain you are searching in. The first row, where any of the field values matches the characters you typed, gets highlighted. You can type the same character(s) again to move to the next matching row.
In the above example, you typed “sub” and a row with a field starting with “Submit” got highlighted. You can type “sub” again to move to the next matching row.
Download the latest version of SDB Explorer for more new features.
Export Amazon SimpleDB Domains to CSV or XML Format Using SDB Explorer
We are extremely excited to announce SDB Explorer version 2012.05.01.00, which brings one of the most demanded features for Amazon SimpleDB users. With this version, you can export your SimpleDB data into CSV file, in addition to exporting in XML format.
With this feature, you can back up your SimpleDB domains to CSV files and easily restore those CSV files to SimpleDB domains when needed. This will help you backup, restore or copy the SimpleDB domain content much more efficiently.
Export Amazon SimpleDB Domains to Comma Separated Values (CSV)
SDB Explorer has been supporting the export of SimpleDB domains to XML files in prior versions. With multiple Amazon SimpleDB user feedbacks, we realized the importance of being able to export a domain to CSV file.
With the new version of SDB Explorer, you will experience fast, multiple and parallel process to export the domain content of one or many Amazon SimpleDB domains to CSV file.
This backed up CSV files can be imported back to the same or any other domain.
Manage Frequently Changing Content On Amazon CloudFront- New Lower Expiration Period (0 Second TTL)
Recently Amazon CloudFront lowered the minimum content expiration period, which will allow you to refresh your content at CloudFront edge locations at much shorter intervals. This enables you to use Amazon CloudFront service to deliver your frequently changing content.
Earlier objects stayed in cache on Amazon CloudFront’s edge locations for a minimum time of 60 minutes. The default expiration period to cache all objects at the edge locations used to be 24 hours and that still remains the same. However, now you can customize the TTL (Time To Live) anywhere from zero seconds to 100 years.
Although the default value for TTL in Bucket Explorer is set to 60 minutes, Bucket Explorer supports the new minimum content expiration period supported by Amazon CloudFront.
You can create a CloudFront Distribution and set the expiration period in very quick steps using Bucket Explorer.
If you choose, you can also use CloudFront Invalidation to remove files from the edge locations, in case you need to remove the files unexpectedly due to an unplanned change, prior to the expiration time set on those files.
Read more about recent changes released in Bucket Explorer.
Amazon S3 User Interface Enhancements- New Bucket Explorer Features
In the 2012.03.01.02 version of Bucket Explorer, we have released some great convenience features for Bucket Explorer users, in addition to some major Amazon S3 based features. These are the new features, which will absolutely make your lives much better, if you work a lot on S3 to store and manage your data:
Filter Files from Upload/ Download : Bucket Explorer provides an option of blocking listed file types from the upload/download operation. You can configure the file extensions to be blocked during uploads and downloads, from Advanced Preferences panel. You can enter multiple file extensions separated by comma (,).
This will address any security issues you might have with uploading or downloading files like executable (.exe) files or image files, which might cause harm to your system.
Bookmark the long remote folders path for quick object listing:
Most of the time we end up working on folders at different levels within the folder structure of a bucket. After a certain point, it can become really painful to navigate to those embedded folders over and over again to access the data.
To save time and money spent on multiple S3 requests, we have added a bookmark option in Bucket Explorer in the new version, to save your folder paths for easy access. You will find a bookmark button next to the remote path text box.
You will see the bookmark button with plus(+) sign, if the listed path is not bookmarked, to add the bookmark. You will see a minus(-) sign for the bookmarked path, to remove the bookmark if you like.
You can quickly see the object listing for buckets embedded within main buckets by selecting the bookmark, without having to navigate to that bucket.
Advanced Search Options:
- Search within Object Listing Table : This feature helps you search within your objects listing in the object table. Now you do not need to scroll the listing table from top to bottom looking for a particular file anymore. You can search your objects on key press. Start typing the search word and the searched file will get highlighted on keypress.
- Search in multiple ways: You can search either by prefix or by prefix and delimiter
Customize Toolbar : This version allows you to customize your Bucket and Object toolbar in Bucket Explorer. Now you can set order for, hide/show the toolbar buttons according to your preference.
Configure “part size” for Multi Part Processes from GUI : Now you can configure the size of individual parts of multi part upload and download process from Bucket Explorer Advanced Preferences panel. You do not need to edit the configuration file for this setting.
Enhanced Look and Feel : We have improved look and feel of the Bucket Explorer with alternate row color, dispose on escape button press and more new features.
