In today’s cloud-driven world, staying informed about changes in your cloud environment is crucial for efficient management and response times. By integrating Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) with Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), you can streamline notifications for your cloud storage and stay on top of crucial updates. This guide will walk you through the integration process, from creating an SNS topic to configuring S3 event notifications and troubleshooting any issues.

Introduction to Amazon S3 and SNS

Amazon S3 is an object storage service that allows users to store, retrieve, and manage large amounts of data. Because it can store any data and is scalable, S3 is widely used for data backup, archiving, and big data analytics.

Amazon SNS is a fully managed messaging service that lets you send notifications to multiple endpoints, including email, SMS, or even HTTP/HTTPS endpoints. Integrating SNS with S3 allows you to automatically receive notifications when certain events (like object uploads or deletions) occur within your S3 buckets.

Creating an SNS Topic for S3 Event Notifications

The first step in setting up this integration is to create an SNS topic that will handle notifications for your S3 bucket.

Accessing the AWS Management Console

  1. Log in to your AWS Management Console.
  2. Use the search bar at the top of the console to locate Simple Notification Service (SNS).

Navigating to SNS and Creating a New Topic

  1. In the SNS dashboard, click on Topics on the left-hand navigation panel.
  2. Click the Create Topic button at the top right.

Configuring Topic Details and Subscribing with Email

  1. Choose the topic type (Standard is acceptable for most cases).
  2. Enter a name for your topic (e.g., S3BucketNotifications).
  3. Click Create Topic.
  4. Once the topic is created, click Create Subscription.
  5. In the subscription form:
    • Choose Email as the protocol.
    • Enter your email address for notifications.
    • Click Create Subscription and confirm the subscription by following the link sent to your email.

Obtaining the Topic ARN

After creating the topic, you’ll need its ARN (Amazon Resource Name) to configure S3 event notifications. The ARN can be found on the details page under Topic ARN. Copy this ARN for later use.

Configuring Event Notifications in S3

With the SNS topic set up, it’s time to configure event notifications in your S3 bucket.

Navigating to S3 and Selecting the Bucket

  1. In the AWS Management Console, search for S3 and go to the S3 dashboard.
  2. Click on the bucket for which you want to configure event notifications.

Configuring Event Notifications and Setting Event Details

  1. In the bucket’s settings, scroll to the Event notifications section and click Create Event notification.
  2. Give your notification a unique name (e.g., NewUploadNotification).
  3. Select the event types you want notified about (e.g., ObjectCreated, ObjectRemoved).

Configuring the Destination and Saving

  1. Under Destination, select the SNS topic.
  2. Paste the SNS Topic ARN that you copied earlier.
  3. Click Save Changes to finalize the setup.

Troubleshooting SNS Notifications in S3

If you encounter any issues receiving SNS notifications from S3, there are a few troubleshooting steps you should consider.

Accessing Existing SNS Topic and Editing Access Policy

  1. Return to the SNS dashboard and navigate to your topic.
  2. Under the Access policy, ensure that S3 can publish messages to your SNS topic.
  3. Add the necessary permissions, following the format provided by AWS documentation.

Testing and Conclusion

Once everything is set up, it’s time to test your integration. Upload or delete an object in your S3 bucket and check if you receive a notification via your subscribed email.

Following this guide, you’ll have integrated S3 and SNS to automatically send notifications for specific bucket events, improving visibility and control over your cloud storage.

References

Walkthrough: Configuring a bucket for notifications (SNS topic or SQS queue)

Event notification types and destinations