Reimplemented s3 and other cloud storage updates from 7.3 branch

[ekansa]

brief description of changes

issues addressed

further comments

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This box must be checked

• [ ] the PR branch was originally made from the base branch

This box should be checked

• [ ] after these changes the docs build locally without error

This box should only be checked you intend to follow through on it (we can do it on our end too)

• [ ] I will cherry-pick all commits in this PR into other branches that should have them after this PR is merged

[ekansa]

Not doing a PR, because this change had prior approval when merged into the 7.3 branch.