This backup tool has the regular features of selecting source directories and target location but it does have a few advanced features:

• you can upload files larger than 5GB
• failed uploads may be resumed
• your data may be encrypted
• there is support for file versioning
• you may specify file filters for backups
• you may skip hidden or system files
• you may compress files
• there is support for RRS
• local deleted files may be kept for a defined period on the backup
• online access to the files
• differential backup

If you use the ‘Advance Mode‘ you will enjoy the full range of features but the file structure of the backup set will not resemble the local copy. I’m a simple guy and prefer the ‘Simple Mode‘ so the backup set, on the S3 bucket, looks exactly like the local structure and I can access it with any tool I want (like S3 Fox).

All and all the tool works great and very simple to install and use. It is intuitive. On my wish list I would include only a few additions:

• A tool to compare the local copy with the backup set like the one in S3 Explorer.
• A tool to estimate backup costs (already planned).
• Backup option to Google storage (still in invite stage).

To help people get started with the Amazon services, Amazon just announceda free usage tier for new users which includes 5GB of S3 storage space for one year – great deal and a great opportunity to get started with backups to the cloud.

A problem I have encountered from day one when using Amazon S3 was the lack of a simple way to manage files and directories (called buckets on S3). To the rescue came S3Fox Organizer which is “A Front-end tool for Amazon S3 with a nifty GUI Interface” built as a FireFox Addon. S3Fox is really great. It allows you to do all your basic tasks on S3: upload, download, sync, create buckets, manage permissions, create time limited URLs and all for free! However, if you are a heavy user and need some more advanced features, sooner or later you will start looking for a different solution.

While searching for new options I found S3 Explorer by CloudBerry Lab which is a Windows desktop client for Amazon S3. The S3 Explorer Freeware version offers a large set of nice options such as:

• copy and move objects in your account (no S3 fees in the same zone)

copy and move objects in your account

• copy objects between your S3 accounts (no S3 fees within the same zone)
• generate web URLs using CNAME records (i.e. pictures.mydomain.com)

generate web URLs using CNAME records

• generate web URLs that expires in a specific time
• sync folders between different locations (local machine and S3)

• setting for Cloudfront Streaming so you can stream your media directly from S3
• master password for the software
• control of permissions inheritance

• create and manage policies

Additional features in the pro version:

• versioning (Amazon just announced that versioning is supported in all zones)

versioning

• ftp support (needs direct transfers from ftp to S3)
• schedule updating the ACLs
• compress files before upload (GZIP) to reduce storage and transfer expenses.
• encrypt files before upload
• overcome S3′s 5GB file size limit by splitting large files (‘chunking’).

compress, encrypt and split large files

With a rich set of features the overall experience of S3 Explorer is very good. I would be happy to see just a few things:

• portable version
• resume failed uploads (not supported by Amazon S3)
• copy files directly from ftp to S3 (not using the  local computer).
• while the pricing of the pro version is reasonable I would prefer a different licensing scheme. The registration fee of 39.99$ is for one installation with one year of support. A better scheme would be a longer term for free updates and the option to install the program on at least two machines (desktop and laptop)

Another interesting program from CloudBerry lab that I want to test is CloudBerry Online Backup to Amazon S3. For a long time I have been using Handy Backup but it lacks backups to the cloud. Stay tuned.

Amazon Web Services publishes our most up-to-the-minute information on service availability in the table below. Check back here any time to get current status information, or subscribe to an RSS feed to be notified of interruptions to each individual service. If you are experiencing a real-time, operational issue with one of our services that is not described below, please inform us by clicking on the “Report an Issue” link to submit a service issue report.

With this page you can check the status of each service, report an issue and also sign for an RSS feed for the different services.

History data for each service is also available:

$0.15 per GB-Month of storage used 0.006 GB-Mo $0.01
$0.10 per GB – all data transfer in 0.011 GB $0.01
$0.18 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out 2.784 GB $0.50
$0.01 per 1,000 PUT or LIST requests 3810 Requests $0.04
$0.01 per 10,000 GET and all other requests 2394466 Requests $2.39

The total monthly cost is $2.95 and most of the charge is for GET requests – 2,394,466 of them. As you can se, storage and data are very cheap and according to Amazon’s announcement, this month they will be even cheaper.

Overall performance has improved but offloading is not the only reason. We did a few more thing with our system but “saving” 2,394,466 requests and file servings must have helped.

The plugin uses the ‘stylesheet_directory_uri‘ filter to set the stylesheet uri (css file). In turn, the stylesheet uses the ‘url‘ method to call the image files of the theme so they get the same base url as the stylesheet. Most themes uses the ‘stylesheet_directory‘ call correctly so you will not run into trouble but if a theme uses it to call a php file you should change the call to use ‘template_directory‘.

Download: themes-s3.zip

Usage:

1. Signup for an Amazon-S3 account.
2. Create a bucket for your files. Since you have to select a globally unique name for your buckets I call it s3.domain.com were domain.com is my wpmu installation.
3. To point s3 to your bucket setup a CNAME record: s3 -> s3.domain.com.s3.amazonaws.com. (don’t forget that extra dot at the end).
4. Load your themes css and image files to your bucket keeping the exact directory structure for each theme (/wp-contents/themes/… ). You can use the excellent S3 FireFox Organizer to mange your files.
5. Edit the plugin to include your bucket name.
6. Place the plugin in the mu-plugins directory.
7. Test, test and test all your themes!

Whats next? The next step I’m planning is to off-load the Java Scripts in the wp-includes folder. Also planned is an option to serve the users files from S3. If you are interested in helping in any way please leave a comment and we can take it from there.