Media Hosting with Amazon S3
3 03 2008
It’s taken me a few weeks to make this happen but I’ve finally moved the file hosting for On Digital Media to Amazon S3. It’s only been live for a couple of hours and already I’ve received email and tweets from ODM subscribers who have noticed the improved download speed.
Why did I make the move?
My current hosting provider offers simple, reliable media hosting. Interestingly, this type of hosting doesn’t allow for scripts, applications or logging - it’s purely a file hosting service.
Therein lies Reason #1: I’m paying way too much for file storage. People continually listen to archived episodes, so I prefer to leave them online. A typical episode is around 45 megabytes and we’ve produced 60 of them to date - that can really add up.
Reason #2: no log files. I’ve been relying on a measurement system that leaves me to question the number of listeners we have each month and a log analyzer would give me more confidence in the numbers.
So, what did I learn during this process?
S3 doesn’t write log files in a common log format! So, a standard log analyzer (Webalizer, analog, etc.) won’t work.
A quick google search unveiled S3stat, which I’m testing now.
Stay tuned for a review.
Technorati Tags: Amazon S3, Media Hosting, Storage, Podcasting, On Digital Media, Podcast
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