Create S3 bucket for a specific region

Question

If I create an S3 bucket as follows:

    AmazonS3Config amazonS3Config = new AmazonS3Config
    {
        ServiceURL = "s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com"
    };
    AmazonS3Client amazonS3Client = new AmazonS3Client(myAccessKeyId, 
        mySecretAccessKey, amazonS3Config)

    PutBucketRequest request = new PutBucketRequest
    {
        BucketName = bucket.Name,
        BucketRegion = S3Region.EU
    };
    amazonS3Client.PutBucket(request); 

As you see I have clearly specified to create my bucket in EU region,
but when I go to AWS explorer, I can see my bucket available in all the regions.

What is the point of specifying bucket region if my bucket is always replicated in all the regions?
Can anyone please clarify?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Presumably you are referring to the Amazon S3 node within the AWS Explorer view of the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse or the AWS Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio?

Amazon S3 is unique amongst the AWS services concerning its region handling in various ways (likely just a legacy issue due to it being one of the early offerings), which is also reflected in the AWS Management Console 'til this day:

The major design aspect relevant here is that an S3 bucket name must be globally unique, no matter in which region you create it. That's probably why AWS has decided to show all buckets in a a single view rather than separated by region like all other services, which can admittedly be very confusing (and gets unwieldy as well with a growing number of buckets).

However, the bucket still gets created in the region you specified, it just isn't obvious due to the unified presentation within the AWS Explorers and the AWS Management Console. You can see a bucket's region by opening its properties view (via the Properties context menu in the toolkits resp. the Properties button in the console).

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Update

I just realized that the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse surprisingly lacks such a properties window for S3 buckets actually, which isn't only severely limiting its functionality (because you can't change advanced buckets options for example), but must be considered a notable usability bug in the light of your question.

It's pretty puzzling actually, given the available view estate and the utterly simple API operation needed for this - I'm usually using both Visual Studio and Eclipse on a daily basis and have long switched to the AWS Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio due to its perceived performance benefits and greater and deeper service coverage to begin with, but wasn't aware of this really surprising omission yet.

Accordingly, you'll need to resort to the AWS Management Console or the AWS Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio to visually inspect/verify your region for the time being.