Amazon S3 Video Storage: Optimizing VOD Data for Broadcasters
As VOD libraries expand, broadcasters face rising storage demands and slower data access. To address that, we propose a model using Amazon S3 video storage that keeps media scalable, secure, and cost-efficient over time. Why Amazon S3 Video Storage Fits Modern VOD Workflows Launched on March 14 2006, Amazon S3 began as one of the first public cloud storage services. The current API version—2006-03-01—has remained stable for nearly two decades while continuously adding new capabilities such as lifecycle automation, reduced storage tiers, and improved console features. Over more than 15 years of updates, S3 has grown far beyond “a storage bucket” into a global object storage platform that supports replication, logging, and analytics at scale. According to Wikipedia, the number of stored objects increased from about 10 billion in 2007 to more than 400 billion in 2023—illustrating how it scales with worldwide demand for AWS cloud storage and video streaming workloads. Key technical advantages of Amazon S3 video storage: Scalability: Pay only for the data you use—no pre-provisioning or capacity limits. Durability: Designed for 99.999999999 percent (“11 nines”) data durability, ensuring media integrity over time. Cost flexibility: Multiple storage classes allow efficient tiering from frequently to rarely accessed content. Deep AWS integration: Works seamlessly with CloudFront, Lambda, Athena, and Glue to handle video processing and delivery. Security and compliance: Versioning, Object Lock, and CloudTrail logging meet broadcast-grade data-governance requirements. With this maturity, scalability, and reliability, Amazon S3 video storage has become the natural foundation for broadcasters building modern VOD systems. Solution Architecture: Multi-Tier VOD Storage on Amazon S3 The broadcasting team built its VOD system around Amazon S3 video storage to handle about 50 GB of new recordings each day — nearly 18 TB per year. The goal was simple: keep all video available, but spend less on storage that’s rarely accessed. Instead of treating every file the same, the data is separated by lifecycle. New uploads stay in S3 Standard for quick access, while older footage automatically moves to cheaper tiers such as Standard-IA and Glacier. Cross-Region Replication creates a copy in another region for disaster recovery, and versioning keeps track of every edit or replacement. This setup cuts monthly cost by more than half compared with storing everything in a single class. It also reduces manual work - files move, age, and archive automatically based on defined lifecycle rules. The rest of this section breaks down how the system works in practice. (AWS Best Practice) System Overview The storage system is split into a few simple parts, each doing one clear job. Primary S3 bucket (Region A – Singapore): This is where all new videos land after being uploaded from local studios. Editors and producers can access these files directly for a few months while the content is still fresh and often reused. Lifecycle rules for auto-tiering: After the first three months, the system automatically shifts older objects to cheaper storage tiers. It’s handled through lifecycle rules, so there’s no need to track or move files manually. Cross-Region Replication (Region B – Tokyo): Every new file is copied to another region for redundancy. If one region fails or faces downtime, all data can still be restored from the secondary location. Access control and versioning: Access policies define who can read or modify content, while versioning keeps a full history of changes — useful when editors replace or trim video files. Together, these components keep the VOD archive easy to manage: new content stays fast to access, archived footage stays safe, and everything costs far less than a one-tier setup. Optimizing with AWS Storage Classes Each phase of a video’s lifecycle maps naturally to a different AWS storage class. In the early stage, new uploads stay in S3 Standard, where editors still access them frequently for editing or scheduling broadcasts. After the first few months, when the files are mostly finalized, they shift to S3 Standard-IA, which keeps the same quick access speed but costs almost half as much. As the archive grows, older footage that is rarely needed moves automatically to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, where it remains available for years at a fraction of the price. Content that only needs to be retained for compliance or historical purposes can be stored safely in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval or Deep Archive, depending on how long it needs to stay accessible. This tiered structure keeps the storage lean and predictable. Costs fall gradually as data ages while every file remains retrievable whenever required, something that traditional on-premise systems rarely achieve. It allows broadcasters to manage expanding VOD libraries without overpaying for high-performance storage that most of their content no longer needs. Storage Class Use Case Access Speed Cost Level Typical Retention S3 Standard New uploads and frequently accessed videos Milliseconds High 0–90 days S3 Standard-IA Less-accessed content, still in rotation Milliseconds Medium 90–180 days S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval Older videos that may need quick access Milliseconds Low 6–12 months S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval Archival content, rarely accessed Minutes to hours Very low 1–3 years S3 Glacier Deep Archive Historical backups or compliance data Hours Lowest 3+ years Automating Data Tiering with Amazon S3 Lifecycle Policy Manually tracking which videos are old enough to move to cheaper storage becomes unrealistic once the archive grows to terabytes. To avoid that, the team set up an Amazon S3 lifecycle policy that automatically transitions data between storage tiers depending on how long each object has been in the bucket. This approach removes manual work and ensures that every file lives in the right tier for its age and access frequency. The rule applies to all objects in the vod-storage-bucket. For roughly the first three months, videos remain in S3 Standard, where they are frequently opened by editors and producers for re-editing or rebroadcasting. After 90 days, the lifecycle rule moves those files to S3 Standard-IA, which keeps millisecond-level access speed but costs around 40% less. When videos reach about six months old, they are transitioned again to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, which provides durable, low-cost storage while still allowing quick restores when needed. After three years, the system automatically deletes expired files to keep the archive clean and avoid paying for data no one uses anymore. Below is the JSON configuration used for the policy: What this policy does: After 90 days, objects are moved from S3 Standard to S3 Standard-IA. After 180 days, the same objects move to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval. After 3 years (1,095 days), the data is deleted automatically. This way, fresh content stays fast, older content stays cheap, and the archive never grows forever. Ensuring Redundancy with Cross-Region Replication (S3 CRR) When broadcasters archive years of video, the question isn’t just cost — it’s “what if a region goes down?” To keep content recoverable, the system enables S3 Cross-Region Replication (CRR). Each new or updated file in the primary bucket is automatically copied to a backup bucket in another AWS region. This setup uses a simple AWS CLI command: When CRR is active, every object uploaded to the vod-storage-bucket is duplicated in vod-backup-bucket, stored in a different region such as Tokyo. If the main region suffers an outage or data loss, the broadcaster can still restore or stream files from the backup. Besides disaster recovery, CRR supports compliance requirements that demand off-site backups and version protection. It also gives flexibility: the destination can use a lower-cost storage class, cutting replication expenses while keeping full data redundancy. Cost Analysis: Amazon S3 Pricing for VOD Workloads To evaluate the actual savings, the team estimated the monthly cost of storing roughly 18 TB of VOD data on Amazon S3. If everything stayed in S3 Standard, the cost would reach about $0.023 per GB per month, or nearly $414 USD in total. This flat setup is simple but inefficient, as older videos that are rarely accessed still sit in the most expensive storage class. With lifecycle tiering enabled, the same 18 TB is distributed across several classes based on how often each dataset is used. Around 4.5 TB of recent videos remain in S3 Standard for fast access, another 4.5 TB shifts to S3 Standard-IA, and the rest (about 9 TB) moves to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval for long-term retention. Based on AWS’s current pricing, this mix brings the total monthly cost down to around $195–$200, cutting storage expenses by over 50 percent while keeping all assets available when needed. Storage Segment Approx. Volume Storage Class Price (USD / GB / month) Estimated Monthly Cost New videos (0–90 days) 4.5 TB S3 Standard $0.023 ~$103.5 90–180 days 4.5 TB S3 Standard-IA $0.0125 ~$56.25 180 days+ 9 TB S3 Glacier IR $0.004 ~$36 Total 18 TB — — ~$195.75 Final Thoughts The VOD storage model built on Amazon S3 shows how broadcasters can balance scale, reliability, and cost in one system. By combining lifecycle policies, multi-tier storage, and cross-region replication, the workflow stays simple while infrastructure costs drop sharply. With Amazon S3 video storage, broadcasters can scale their VOD systems sustainably and cost-effectively — turning storage from a fixed cost into a flexible, data-driven resource. If your team is looking to modernize or optimize an existing VOD platform, Haposoft can help assess your current setup and design a tailored AWS storage strategy that grows with your needs.
