While much of the systems currently online utilize FTP or sFTP services to maintain files in the cloud, Amazon’s S3 is actually a true “Cloud” service provider.
Rather than a simple file server hosted over a series of hard-drives and servers, Amazon’s S3 is actually a massive database, much like Microsoft SQL Azure. There is a single table containing a the file name and the binary information of file itself. There is no delay in searching for files, the data is constantly indexed and held.
Unlike a general FTP server, Amazon maintains massive arrays of servers all over the world. What this means is that the distance between your user and your file is minimalized, regardless of their physical location on the planet. With a normal File Server, may have a machine in Arizona, and a user requesting a file in Seattle may have to pass that request and receive the file back after passing through 20 different servers and routers.
With Morris Development Systems, we keep all static file data on Amazon’s S3 system. That way, we can have the same application system installed on a client’s local machine in San Francisco, a client’s local server in Palo Alto, a co-located machine in Beijing, and any number of other machines without conflicts and withing any speed reduction.
For Morris Development, the primary value is the stability and scalability of the system it supports. It is in that, which Amazon’s S3 services excels.