AWS re:Invent 2025 - Introducing Amazon S3 Access Points for FSx for NetApp ONTAP (STG217)

Introducing Amazon S3 Access Points for FSx for NetApp ONTAP

Overview

• AWS recognizes that data is the foundation for modern innovation, with hundreds of exabytes of data stored in file systems across organizations worldwide.
• 80% of this data is unstructured, representing valuable business knowledge and institutional memory locked away in file systems.
• Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP provides a fully managed NetApp file system in the cloud, combining enterprise file capabilities with the benefits of AWS.

Unlocking the Potential of ONTAP Data

• Customers want to leverage their ONTAP data with a wide range of AWS AI, ML, and analytics services that integrate with Amazon S3.
• To enable this, AWS is introducing S3 Access Points for FSx for NetApp ONTAP, allowing customers to access their ONTAP data as if it were in an S3 bucket.

How S3 Access Points Work

• S3 Access Points are S3 endpoints that provide secure access to shared data sets in S3 buckets and FSx for ONTAP file systems.
• With S3 Access Points for FSx ONTAP:
  • Customers can use the S3 API to access their ONTAP data, enabling integration with a wide range of AWS services.
  • Data remains in the ONTAP file system and is accessible via both file protocols (NFS, SMB) and the S3 API.
  • Authentication and authorization work at both the S3 and file system levels, maintaining security.
  • Performance is the same as the underlying FSx ONTAP file system, as there is only one copy of the data.

Key Use Cases

1. Integrating Enterprise File Data with AWS AI and Analytics Services:

   • Customers can now easily connect decades of enterprise file data stored in ONTAP to AWS services like Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, Amazon Sagemaker, and Amazon QuickSight.
   • This enables transformative use cases like building AI-powered research assistants and deriving business insights from institutional knowledge.

2. Leveraging Disaster Recovery Data:

   • Customers often use FSx ONTAP as a secondary site for disaster recovery, with data replicated from on-premises ONTAP.
   • S3 Access Points allow them to put this disaster recovery data to work, integrating it with analytics services without maintaining a separate S3 data lake.

3. Modernizing Applications with Hybrid Access:

   • Customers can serve their ONTAP data to both existing file-based applications and new cloud-native applications using serverless architectures and the S3 API.
   • This allows gradual application modernization without disrupting existing workflows.

Technical Details

• S3 Access Points can be created and attached to individual ONTAP volumes, with up to 10,000 access points per volume.
• Access points have an automatically generated alias that can be used anywhere an S3 bucket name is required.
• Authentication and authorization happen at both the S3 and file system levels, maintaining security.
• Performance is the same as the underlying FSx ONTAP file system, as there is only one copy of the data.

Business Impact

• S3 Access Points for FSx ONTAP enable customers to unlock the value of their enterprise file data by seamlessly integrating it with a wide range of AWS AI, ML, and analytics services.
• This unlocks new opportunities for data-driven innovation, business intelligence, and application modernization without the need for complex data migration or rearchitecture.
• Customers can now put their disaster recovery data to work and gradually add cloud-native capabilities alongside existing file-based applications.

Demonstration Highlights

• The demo walked through the process of creating an S3 Access Point for an FSx ONTAP volume, including configuring the file system identity and network access.
• It showed how to access the ONTAP data using both file protocols (NFS, SMB) and the S3 API, demonstrating the seamless integration.
• The demo then showcased integrating the ONTAP data with Amazon Athena for SQL-based analytics and Amazon QuickSight for AI-assisted business intelligence.

Key Takeaways

1. S3 Access Points for FSx ONTAP provide the easiest way for customers to leverage their enterprise file data with a wide range of AWS services.
2. This enables transformative use cases like integrating decades of institutional knowledge with AI-powered research and business intelligence tools.
3. Customers can put their disaster recovery data to work and gradually modernize applications without disrupting existing workflows.
4. The solution maintains security and performance by leveraging the underlying FSx ONTAP file system and providing both S3 and file system-level authentication and authorization.