Setting Up Your First AWS S3 Glacier Vault: Step-by-Step Tutorial.

What Is an AWS S3 Glacier Vault?

Amazon S3 Glacier Vaults are part of the original Glacier service, a low-cost cloud storage solution designed for long-term data archiving and digital preservation.

Unlike standard Amazon S3 storage classes, Glacier Vaults operate as a separate service interface and offer a different model for data management.

When you create a Glacier Vault, you’re setting up a dedicated container for storing archives, which are the basic storage units in Glacier — essentially files bundled with optional metadata.

Each vault is region-specific, highly durable (designed for 99.999999999% durability), and supports a wide variety of archival use cases, from regulatory compliance and legal document retention to offloading historical backups and rarely-accessed media files.

A Glacier Vault doesn’t support direct browsing or listing of individual files like S3 does. Instead, you manage content through archive IDs, and file operations like uploads and retrievals are done via the AWS CLI, SDKs, or APIs.

You cannot upload files directly through the AWS Console; instead, files must be uploaded using multipart operations for anything over 100MB, and each upload returns a unique archive ID for later reference. Retrievals from Glacier are intentionally delayed and tiered to reduce costs.

Options include Expedited (minutes), Standard (hours), and Bulk (many hours) depending on how quickly you need the data back — this makes Glacier ideal for rarely needed but critical data.

Vaults can be configured with access policies to define who can read, write, or retrieve data.

These policies are JSON-based and act similarly to S3 bucket policies, but they are unique to Glacier. Vaults can also integrate with Amazon SNS to notify you when retrieval jobs are complete.

For compliance needs, you can use Vault Lock, which lets you enforce WORM (Write Once, Read Many) policies to meet regulations such as SEC Rule 17a-4(f) or HIPAA.

Although Amazon now encourages the use of S3 Glacier and Glacier Deep Archive storage classes within the broader S3 ecosystem (which simplify access, lifecycle management, and permissions), classic Glacier Vaults still serve a purpose in legacy systems or when a completely isolated archival vault is preferred.

They offer a strong separation of concerns, distinct management boundaries, and tailored performance profiles ideal for cold storage workloads.

Ultimately, an S3 Glacier Vault is a secure, scalable, and cost-effective way to preserve large volumes of infrequently accessed data for the long haul — with the trade-off of slower retrieval and limited tooling for real-time access.

Whether you’re a developer, IT admin, or compliance officer, understanding Glacier Vaults gives you a solid foundation in AWS’s cold storage capabilities.

Prerequisites

• An active AWS account
• Basic familiarity with the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI

Step 1: Navigate to the Glacier Console

1. Log in to the AWS Console.
2. In the Services menu, search for Glacier.
3. Click on Amazon S3 Glacier.

Step 2: Create a Glacier Vault

1. Click on “Create vault”.
2. Select your desired AWS region.
3. Enter a Vault Name — e.g., project-archive-2025.
4. Optionally, set up notifications via Amazon SNS (for retrieval completions or jobs).
5. Click Create Vault.

Step 3: Set Access Permissions

Glacier Vaults use Vault Access Policies, separate from S3 bucket policies. To define who can access the vault:

1. In the vault list, click your newly created vault.
2. Choose the “Access Policy” tab.
3. Click Edit policy, and paste a sample IAM policy like

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "AllowUserAccess",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": { "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT-ID:user/YourUser" },
      "Action": "glacier:*",
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

• Replace ACCOUNT-ID and YourUser with real values.
• Save the policy.

Step 4: Upload Archives Using the AWS CLI (Optional for Console-Only Users)

Amazon Glacier Vaults do not support direct file upload via the console — you must use the AWS CLI or SDK.

Example CLI commands:

# Upload a file to your Glacier Vault
aws glacier upload-archive \
  --vault-name project-archive-2025 \
  --account-id - \
  --body ./myfile.zip

• unt
• --body is the path to your local file

Note: Uploading large files (>100 MB) requires multipart uploads.

Step 5: Retrieve Archived Data (When Needed)

Since Glacier is built for long-term, infrequent access, retrievals are delayed depending on the tier you choose:

• Expedited: 1–5 minutes
• Standard: 3–5 hours
• Bulk: 5–12 hours (lowest cost)

Use this CLI command to initiate a retrieval:

aws glacier initiate-job \
  --vault-name project-archive-2025 \
  --account-id - \
  --job-parameters '{"Type": "archive-retrieval", "ArchiveId": "YOUR_ARCHIVE_ID", "Tier": "Standard"}'

Bonus: Monitor Vault Activity with AWS CloudTrail

Enable CloudTrail to log all API calls to and from your Glacier Vaults — essential for compliance and audit trails.

Conclusion.

AWS S3 Glacier Vaults offer a robust and cost-effective solution for organizations that need to store large volumes of data long-term without frequent access.

While they may not offer the ease-of-use of standard S3 storage classes, they excel in durability, security, and compliance — making them ideal for archiving legal documents, backups, medical records, and other cold data.

By understanding how to create, manage, and retrieve data from Glacier Vaults, you can take full advantage of AWS’s cold storage capabilities and build a more efficient, resilient data lifecycle.

Whether you’re migrating legacy archives or building a fresh cold-storage strategy, Glacier Vaults remain a reliable tool in the AWS storage ecosystem.