I have a FileMaker-based Point-of-Sale (POS) solution that stores thousands of product images in a container field. (I’m downloading and compressing them to reduce the file size.)
To reduce the file size, I’m considering eliminating the container field and pulling the images from an Amazon S3 bucket.
I’ve searched the web a bit and found a few related discussions but am still undecided. Anybody have experience or advice in this area?
Without knowing more about how you would implement this, I can say that it's straightforward to connect FileMaker to S3 using the Amazon API to store images or other files.
Options include using a ready-to-implement solution like Zapier or using a REST service in which you include the AWS API libraries. I've used both approaches with no problems (both work "with" FileMaker but don't "require" FileMaker -- a consideration for later migration or additional usage.)
MBS FileMaker Plugin includes an example for S3 upload.
I have a script that uses Insert from URL to retrieve images from my distributor website. I’d like to revise that script to download the images from the distributor and then upload them to S3 using an API. This is doable, correct?
Steve
I see no reason this couldn’t work. Although we only use the Amazon CLI for cloud-to-cloud backup purposes, it has been rock solid for all the years we’ve used it. We’re running it using batch files called by by FileMaker Server scripts, but you should be able to run it directly from within FileMaker.
Hopefully, someone else here has more practical examples and there are no doubt other APIs out there.
All the best
Andy
Zapier: Did you check out the Zapier S3 connector? There's a free FMS connector also. So, you could create a "Zap" (the trigger event, say in FMS + action(s) that then occur) to do whatever you needed.
AWS API: Here is a URL I found in a quick search that has examples of AWS operations should you choose to use their API (for free): https://www.baeldung.com/aws-s3-java
Other languages are supported also.
I would suggest creating a test project and diving in. AWS 's APIs are well implemented in various technologies and really isn't much of a stretch. Plus, it's so widely used, many of us can help you here or in other forums such as StackOverflow.
Let me know if I can help.
@steverichter Jason Wood has a demo file & blog post describing his techniques here:
https://www.definedatabase.com/s3-object-storage-filemaker-container-alternative/
If you are looking at paid options, here are 2 vendors who have a subscription based offering:
@steverichter If this is still on your mind, Jason Wood will be doing a presentation on this very topic at a developer group in January: Jason Wood on S3 as a FileMaker Container Alternative & Connecting With Node-RED | Meetup