What Is OBS?

OBS Overview

Object Storage Service (OBS) is a scalable service that provides secure, reliable, and cost-effective cloud storage for massive amounts of data.

OBS provides virtually unlimited storage for objects of any format, catering to the needs of common users, websites, enterprises, and developers. There are no limits on the amount of data or the number of objects/files you can store in OBS or even in a single bucket. OBS offers web APIs over both HTTP and HTTPS. You can use OBS Console or OBS clients to access and manage data stored in OBS over the Internet at any time, from anywhere. OBS also offers OBS SDKs and APIs. With them, you can easily manage data stored in OBS and develop upper-layer applications.

OBS infrastructure is deployed in multiple regions around the globe, which enables excellent scalability and reliability. You can deploy OBS in specific regions for faster access at an affordable price.

Product Architecture

OBS basically consists of buckets and objects.

A bucket is a container for storing objects in OBS. Each bucket is specific to a region and has specific storage class and access permissions. A bucket is accessible through its access domain name over the Internet.

An object is the fundamental storage unit in OBS. An object consists of the key, metadata, and data:

• The key specifies the name of an object. An object key is a UTF-8 string up to 1,024 characters long. Each object within a bucket is uniquely identified by a key.
• The metadata describes an object. Metadata is a set of key-value pairs that are assigned to objects stored in OBS. There are two types of metadata: system-defined metadata and user-defined metadata.
  • System-defined metadata is automatically assigned by OBS. Such metadata includes Date, Content-Length, Last-Modified, ETag, and more.
  • User-defined metadata is the metadata you can assign to objects during upload to describe objects.
• The data is the content of the object.

There is OBS Console and SDKs, together with a number of tools built on OBS REST APIs. You can use them to easily access OBS buckets and their objects in different scenarios. You can also use OBS SDKs and APIs to develop applications that meet your business needs.

Figure 1 Product architecture

Storage Classes

OBS offers the storage classes below to meet different requirements for performance and cost. You can move buckets and objects between storage classes. To learn billing for different storage classes, see Storage Space.

• Standard: The Standard storage class features low latency and high throughput. It is therefore good for storing frequently accessed (multiple times per month) files or small files (less than 1 MB). Typical application scenarios include big data analytics, mobile apps, hot videos, and social apps.
• Infrequent Access: This storage class is for storing data that is infrequently accessed (less than 12 times per year), but when needed, the access has to be fast. It can be used for file synchronization, file sharing, enterprise backups, and many other scenarios. This storage class has the same durability, throughput, and access latency as the Standard storage class, but at a lower cost. However, its availability is slightly lower than that the Standard storage class.
• Archive: This storage class is ideal for storing data that is rarely accessed (once per year). It is typically used to archive data and for long-term backups. This storage class is secure, durable, and inexpensive, so it can be used to replace tape libraries. To keep cost low, it may take hours to restore data from the Archive storage class.
• Deep Archive: The Deep Archive storage class (under limited beta testing) is suitable for storing data that is hardly ever accessed (once every few years). This storage class costs even less than the Archive storage class, but it also takes longer time (usually several hours) to restore data.

When an object is uploaded, it inherits the storage class of the bucket by default, but you can change the storage class when you upload the object.

Changing the storage class of a bucket does not change the storage classes of existing objects in the bucket, but newly uploaded objects will inherit the new storage class.

a: Minimum storage duration refers to the minimum billable storage duration. This means that objects will be billed for the minimum storage duration even if they are not stored for that long. For example, if an Infrequent Access object is deleted after being stored in OBS for 20 days, it will still be billed for the minimum 30 days of storage.

b: Minimum billable object size refers to the minimum object size that is eligible for billing. If an object is smaller than 64 KB, you are billed for 64 KB. If it is larger than 64 KB, you are billed for their actual size.

Accessing OBS

OBS offers a range of resource management tools. You can use any of the tools listed in Table 2 to access and manage resources in OBS.