What is the main purpose of Amazon S3?

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is primarily designed as an object storage service, which means its main purpose is to store and retrieve any amount of data, from anywhere on the web. This includes a variety of file types such as images, videos, documents, backups, and big data. The object storage system facilitates the management of large amounts of unstructured data and provides durability and scalability, making it suitable for different use cases.

S3 employs a flat namespace, organizing data into buckets and utilizing a unique identifier for each object, which helps ensure that data can be stored and accessed efficiently. The versatility of S3 allows for integration with other AWS services and even third-party applications, supporting diverse workflows like data archiving, disaster recovery, and content distribution.

In contrast, processing big data generally involves more complex tools and infrastructure, which can utilize S3 for storage but is not the primary function of S3 itself. Similarly, while you can store large relational databases in S3, it is not optimized for this purpose as relational databases typically require structured storage solutions like Amazon RDS. Running server applications also relies on different AWS services, such as EC2, rather than being the main focus of S3.