Are S3 buckets region specific?

Question

When we go to S3 in AWS console in "Global" option it shows

"S3 does not require region selection."

But when we create new bucket there it asks for Region !

So are S3 buckets region specific ?

Answer 1

The user interface shows all your buckets, in all regions. But buckets exist in a specific region and you need to specify that region when you create a bucket.

Answer 2

S3 buckets are region specific, you can check http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#s3_region to get the list of end-points based on the region

From the doc on creating S3 bucket

Amazon S3 creates bucket in a region you specify. You can choose any AWS region that is geographically close to you to optimize latency, minimize costs, or address regulatory requirements. For example, if you reside in Europe, you might find it advantageous to create buckets in the EU (Ireland) or EU (Frankfurt) regions. For a list of AWS Amazon S3 regions, go to Regions and Endpoints in the AWS General Reference.

Also from UI, if you look at the properties for each of your bucket, you will see the original region

Answer 3

Yes S3 buckets are region specific.

When you create a new bucket you need to select the target region for that bucket.

For example:

Hope it helps.

Answer 4

How it works now is that if you are expecting the content to load fast globally, you create a bucket for every region you want your data to load quickly from, but use 'Versioning' to auto duplicate content from one bucket to the other.

Click on one of your buckets, then go to Management, then go to 'Replication'. Follow the instructions to setup a rule that will copy from one bucket to another.

Congratualtion, you now have globally fast content from a single bucket.

I appreciate if this seems a little off-piste, but I think this is what we are all really looking to achieve.