API Reference for Amazon S3 Glacier - Amazon S3 Glacier
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

This page is only for existing customers of the S3 Glacier service using Vaults and the original REST API from 2012.

If you're looking for archival storage solutions we suggest using the S3 Glacier storage classes in Amazon S3, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive. To learn more about these storage options, see S3 Glacier storage classes and Long-term data storage using S3 Glacier storage classes in the Amazon S3 User Guide. These storage classes use the Amazon S3 API, are available in all regions, and can be managed within the Amazon S3 console. They offer features like Storage Cost Analysis, Storage Lens, security features including multiple encryption options, and more.

API Reference for Amazon S3 Glacier

Amazon S3 Glacier supports a set of operations—specifically, a set of RESTful API calls—that enable you to interact with the service.

You can use any programming library that can send HTTP requests to send your REST requests to S3 Glacier. When sending a REST request, S3 Glacier requires that you authenticate every request by signing the request. Additionally, when uploading an archive, you must also compute the checksum of the payload and include it in your request. For more information, see Signing Requests.

If an error occurs, you need to know what S3 Glacier sends in an error response so that you can process it. This section provides all this information, in addition to documenting the REST operations, so that you can make REST API calls directly.

You can either use the REST API calls directly or use the Amazon SDKs that provide wrapper libraries. These libraries sign each request you send and compute the checksum of the payload in your request. Therefore, using the Amazon SDKs simplifies your coding task. This developer guide provides working examples of basic S3 Glacier operations using the Amazon SDK for Java and .NET. For more information see, Using the Amazon SDKs with Amazon S3 Glacier.

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