S3, hailed as an “object store,” is actually a cloud filesystem for files, not objects. The unix file API consists of five basic functions handling numerous concerns in a “deep” module fashion. S3’s API, simpler than the unix file API, lacks partial overwrites crucial for databases, limiting its capabilities. While S3 excels in high bandwidth for reads and writes, it lacks operations like renaming and file listing, raising performance issues. Despite its perceived simplicity being deep, S3 still poses significant complexity challenges, akin to SAP integration projects. S3’s limitations and design choices, such as XML-only API, missing checksums, and historical eventual consistency issues, underscore its drawbacks.
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