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Lifecycle Management Overview

Overview

You can configure the lifecycle management function to manage objects' lifecycles. You can define how OBS manages an object in the lifecycle from creating or initially storing the object to deleting, migrating, or replacing the object. OBS provides many actions to simplify the lifecycle management of an object, which can be categorized as follows:

  • Transition: specifies the time when objects will be transited from one storage class to another. For example, you can specify that objects will be transited to Infrequent Access 30 days after creation, or to Archive 1 year after creation.
  • Expiration: specifies the expiration time of objects. After doing this, OBS deletes your expired objects.

You can configure lifecycle rules for the objects whose lifecycles are clearly defined. Many objects in a bucket may have a clearly defined lifecycle. The following is an example:

  • If you periodically upload logs to your bucket, your applications may use these logs within one week or one month, and then you may want to delete these logs that may not be used again.
  • Some documents may be frequently accessed within a specified period. Then you may not access these files in real time, but you need to archive them for a longer time and selectively delete them.
  • You may upload data of different types for archive purposes, such as digital media, financial and medical records, original genome sequence data, long-term database backup, and data that must be retained for regulatory compliance.

Configuring the Lifecycle

The lifecycle configuration consists of a set of rules defining the actions that can be performed on objects. The lifecycle configuration must be in XML format. OBS saves the lifecycle configuration as a sub-resource attached to the bucket. You can use OBS APIs to initiate PUT, GET, and DELETE requests on lifecycle configuration.