Question

I am creating an iOS app with S3 currently without distributions (CloudFront) as a test before I divulge into creating a full pledged app. In the S3 Management Console, I have made my bucket in Singapore, where I live, so CloudFront isn’t really needed for this demo. I have to set an endpoint like this:

[s3Client setEndpoint: [AmazonEndpoints s3Endpoint: AP_SOUTHEAST_1]];

Which points to Singapore, endpoint is the place the bucket needs to send the data off to right? (Where the user is)

So now I have two questions

• If I am using CloudFront, do I need to set an endpoint? How do I even use CloudFront in iOS, I generate a signed URL then what?

• If a user is using the app in a random country lets say, what endpoint, if I need to set (with CloudFront), would I set it to? Would I find their current country via the locale and find which endpoint it is closest to?

Thanks!

Answer 1

A set of files in CloudFront is called a “distribution.” When you set up a distribution, you specify one or more “origins”, which is/are the canonical source of the files you’re serving to your users.

In your case, create a new distribution and specify the S3 bucket as the origin. Then in your application, you’d reference it as: http://xxxxxxx.cloudfront.net/hello.png rather than http://mybucket.s3.amazonaws.com/hello.png. Cloudfront will automatically fetch hello.png from the S3 bucket the first time someone requests it and cache it.

CloudFront automatically (and near-instantaneously) detects which edge location is closest to the user by routing them based on network latency. You don’t have to do any of these calculations yourself.

I’d recommend that you read the caveats that I’ve listed here though before using CloudFront in your app.