How to Create S3 Lifecycle Policies with AWS

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If you’re wondering whether it’s possible to move your data from Intelligent-Tiering to Glacier Deep Archive right from the start, the answer is yes—it’s completely doable and quite common. Many users do this to help reduce storage costs for long-term data that they don’t need immediate access to.

You can set up a lifecycle rule to automatically transition your objects from Intelligent-Tiering to Glacier Deep Archive after a specific period. The key point to remember is that there’s no problem starting in Intelligent-Tiering on day one, and then moving your data to Glacier Deep Archive later on using these rules. Just be aware that some older articles or confusing terminology might make it seem complicated; for instance, there is a difference between the Intelligent-Tiering Archive Access and Deep Archive Access tiers, and transitioning to the actual Glacier Deep Archive storage class involves a different process.

Here’s a simple example of how you can set up a lifecycle rule in JSON format. This rule keeps your objects in Intelligent-Tiering immediately and then transitions them to Glacier Deep Archive after 30 days:

json
{
“Rules”: [{
“ID”: “IT-then-DeepArchive”,
“Status”: “Enabled”,
“Filter”: { “Prefix”: “” },
“Transitions”: [
{ “Days”: 0, “StorageClass”: “INTELLIGENT_TIERING” },
{ “Days”: 30, “StorageClass”: “DEEP_ARCHIVE” }
]
}]
}

To apply this rule, you can use the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI). Save the JSON above into a file (for example, lifecycle.json) and run this command:

bash
aws s3api put-bucket-lifecycle-configuration \
–bucket YOUR_BUCKET \
–lifecycle-configuration file://lifecycle.json

Make sure to replace YOUR_BUCKET with the name of your actual S3 bucket.

If your goal is simply to keep data for an additional 30 days as a backup, you might also consider adding an expiration rule at day 60 to automatically delete old data.

Using these simple steps, you can efficiently manage your data lifecycle, making sure your storage costs stay low while your data remains accessible when needed.