Object storage has become the industry standard for modern media infrastructure. It’s durable, scalable, cost-effective, and supported by a vast ecosystem of S3-compatible tools and APIs. For many teams, it serves as the system of record from ingest through archive.

Historically, however, one core challenge has remained:

Once files lives in object storage, how do you make that data usable by local and remote users, tools, and workflow tools—without copying it, syncing it, or moving it around?

That’s the problem Suite’s S3 Native File Streaming solves.

With S3 Native File Streaming, Suite now operates directly on any existing S3-compatible object storage, reading and writing data as standard objects. Suite becomes the file streaming and access layer on top of existing object storage workflows, no matter their size or complexity.

The Access Problem for Teams Using Object Storage

From an infrastructure perspective, object storage offers an ideal solution for storing large datasets. Ingest writes directly to S3. Automation and compute operate on native objects. Lifecycle policies, Identity Access Management (IAM), and compliance controls are enforced cleanly.

It’s great… until people in multiple locations need to work on the data.

The moment editors, artists, or distributed teams need real-time access to read, write, and change files, that’s when the workarounds begin. Data gets copied and isolated into separate filesystems. Teams and individuals are forced to sync files. Storage gateways or fragile “S3 mounts” get introduced to bridge the access gap.

What started as clean infrastructure quickly becomes a fragmented workflow.

How Access Changes with S3 Native File Streaming

S3 Native File Streaming allows Suite to sit directly on top of any existing S3-compatible object storage. No duplicate bucket. No migration phase. Suite reads and writes directly against native S3 objects, and other S3-compatible tools can operate on the same data simultaneously.

This means:

• Instant Enablement, No Migration: Work directly on existing S3 data with no migration, duplication, syncing, or re-ingestion required.‍
• Single Source of Truth: Files remain standard objects in existing object storage buckets, eliminating version sprawl and duplicate copies.
• Real-Time Performance: Stream large files with consistent, local-disk-like behavior - from anywhere in the world.
• Enterprise Ready by Design: Add Suite to existing pipelines and governance models, so teams retain full ownership and control of storage.

Why S3 Native File Streaming Is Different

Many tools claim to "mount S3" as a filesystem. Most rely on thin translation layers that work for light access but break under real production pressure. Large media files, distributed teams, and shared workflows expose these cracks quickly.

At Suite, we’ve taken a fundamentally different approach.

We built a cloud-native filesystem designed for shared, high-performance workflows — and now we’re applying that award-winning architecture directly to native object storage.

To creative tools, files behave like they’re stored on a local disk. To pipelines and automations, objects remain objects. To IT and security teams, control and ownership never change. To the editors, artists, and creatives using Suite, it’s the same experience you’ve already come to love.

Cloud, On-Prem, or Hybrid?

Suite’s S3 Native File Streaming works with any S3-compatible object storage, including cloud object storage, on-prem S3-compatible systems, and hybrid environments.

Local users experience LAN-speed performance. Remote users work on the same files without VPN copies or parallel datasets. The workflow stays consistent regardless of location, complexity, or size.

With S3 Native File Streaming, existing infrastructure doesn’t change—access does.

Private Beta Now Open

S3 Native File Streaming is now available in private beta. If you’ve been promised “S3 as a filesystem” before — and it didn’t hold up under pressure — Suite's S3 native File Streaming is worth a closer look.

Click here to sign up for Suite’s S3 Native private beta.

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