object-versioning · shipping · also Object storage versioning, S3 Versioning

Object versioning

Object versioning retains separately identifiable revisions of an object under the same key.

Related Observatory article: Object versioning on hesela.com

In a versioning-enabled S3 bucket, replacing an object creates a new current version and retains the previous one; a delete without versionId creates a delete marker. Versions are complete objects, not user-visible differential backups. This describes enabled versioning, not suspended buckets. [1]

Relations

related

object-storage, object-lock, conditional-write, backup-manifest, immutability-storage

Advantages

• A known version ID identifies which retained revision a recovery process requests. [3]

Limitations

• Versioning alone does not prohibit permanent deletion of a version by an authorized caller. [1]
• A current delete marker makes a GET without versionId return 404 even when older versions remain. [2]

Citations

1. Amazon S3: How S3 Versioning works (accessed 2026-10-15)
2. Amazon S3: Working with delete markers (accessed 2026-10-15)
3. Amazon S3 API: GetObject (accessed 2026-10-15)
4. Hesela: Backup verification is not a restore test (accessed 2026-10-15)

JSON: /data/terms/object-versioning.json