Step 1: Before You Begin with S3 Glacier - Amazon S3 Glacier
Set Up an Amazon Web Services accountDownload the Appropriate Amazon SDK
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).

If you're new to archival storage in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), we recommend that you start by learning more about the S3 Glacier storage classes in Amazon S3, S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive. For more information, see S3 Glacier storage classes and Storage classes for archiving objects in the Amazon S3 User Guide.

Step 1: Before You Begin with S3 Glacier

Before you can start with this exercise, you must sign up for an Amazon Web Services account (if you don't already have one), and then download one of the Amazon SDKs. See the following sections for instructions.

Set Up an Amazon Web Services account and an Administrator User

If you have not already done so, you must sign up for an Amazon Web Services account and create an administrator user in the account.

To complete the setup, follow the instructions in the following topics.

Set Up an Amazon Web Services account and Create an Administrator User

Sign up for Amazon

When you sign up for Amazon Web Services (Amazon), your Amazon Web Services account is automatically signed up for all services in Amazon, including S3 Glacier. You are charged only for the services that you use. For more information about S3 Glacier usage rates, see the Amazon S3 Glacier pricing page.

If you already have an Amazon Web Services account, skip to Download the Appropriate Amazon SDK. If you don't have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

To sign up for Amazon Web Services

  1. Open http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choose Sign Up.

  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Secure IAM users

After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the IAM User Guide:

Download the Appropriate Amazon SDK

To try the getting started exercise, you must decide which programming language you want to use, and then download the appropriate Amazon SDK for your development platform.

The getting started exercise provides examples in Java and C#.

Downloading the Amazon SDK for Java

To test the Java examples in this developer guide, you need the Amazon SDK for Java. You have the following download options:

Downloading the Amazon SDK for .NET

To test the C# examples in this developer guide, you need the Amazon SDK for .NET. You have the following download options:

  • If you are using Visual Studio, you can install both the Amazon SDK for .NET and the Amazon Toolkit for Visual Studio. The toolkit provides Amazon Explorer for Visual Studio and project templates that you can use for development. To download the Amazon SDK for .NET, go to http://www.amazonaws.cn/sdkfornet. By default, the installation script installs both the Amazon SDK and the Amazon Toolkit for Visual Studio. To learn more about the toolkit, see the Amazon Toolkit for Visual Studio User Guide.

  • If you are using any other IDE to create your application, you can use the same link provided in the preceding step and install only the Amazon SDK for .NET.