Basic Concepts

Basic Concepts Related to OBS APIs

• Account

  You can register an account with Huawei Cloud. The account has full access permissions for all of its cloud services and resources. The account can also reset user passwords and grant permissions to users. An account is a payment entity. To keep the account secure, it is recommended that you create users under the account to perform routine management operations.

• User

  A user is created using an account on Identity and Access Management (IAM) to use cloud services. Each IAM user has its own identity credentials (password and access keys).

  On the My Credentials page on the console, you can view the account ID and user ID, and manage the access keys of the account or IAM users.

  Access keys of the account and its IAM users are required for authentication when calling APIs.

• Bucket

  A bucket is a container where objects are stored. It is the top namespace in OBS. Each object must reside in a bucket. For example, if the object named picture.jpg is stored in the photo bucket, you can use the following URL to access the object: http://photo.obs.region.myhuaweicloud.com/picture.jpg

• Objects

  An object is a basic data unit on OBS. A bucket can store multiple objects, and OBS does not distinguish between object file types. Objects are serialized in OBS. An object may be a text, a video, or any other types of files. In OBS, the size of a file can range from 0 bytes to 48.8 TB. However, when an object is uploaded through the PutObject operation, it cannot exceed the maximum size of 5 GB. Use the multipart upload method, if the object size is larger than 5 GB.

• Region

  A region is a geographic area in which cloud resources are deployed. Availability zones (AZs) in the same region can communicate with each other over an intranet, while AZs in different regions are isolated from each other. Deploying cloud resources in different regions can better suit certain user requirements or comply with local laws or regulations.

  Each bucket in OBS must reside in a region. You can specify the region when creating the bucket. Once a bucket is created, its region cannot be changed. Select the most appropriate region for a bucket based on the location, cost, and regulatory compliance requirements. For details about regions, see Endpoints.

• AZ

  An AZ comprises of one or more physical data centers equipped with independent ventilation, fire, water, and electricity facilities. Computing, network, storage, and other resources in an AZ are logically divided into multiple clusters. AZs within a region are interconnected using high-speed optical fibers to allow you to build cross-AZ high-availability systems.

• Enterprise project

  Enterprise projects group and manage resources across regions. Resources in one enterprise project are logically isolated from resources in another. An enterprise project can contain resources from multiple regions, and resources can be added to or removed from enterprise projects. For more information about enterprise projects and how to obtain enterprise project IDs, see Enterprise Management User Guide.

Differences Between OBS 3.0 and OBS 2.0

OBS architecture has evolved for two generations, OBS 2.0 and OBS 3.0. Now, a newly created bucket and objects in the bucket are stored in the storage of OBS 3.0, but existing buckets in the storage of OBS 2.0 are still retained there.

Basic OBS features and functions are supported by both OBS 3.0 and OBS 2.0. However, some new features are supported only by OBS 3.0, such as object storage class, federated authentication, image processing, and cross-region replication.

You can check the bucket version information on OBS Console or use the Head Bucket API operation to check whether your bucket is in OBS 2.0 or OBS 3.0. The details are as follows:

Method 1: Log in to OBS Console and check the bucket basic information.

If the Bucket Version is 3.0, the bucket is stored in OBS 3.0. If not, the bucket is stored in OBS 2.0.

Method 2: Perform the Head Bucket API operation to check the bucket version.

Sample Request:

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HEAD / HTTP/1.1
Host: bucketname.obs.region.myhuaweicloud.com
Accept: */*
Date: WED, 01 Jul 2015 02:23:25 GMT
Authorization: authorization string

Sample Response:

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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: OBS
x-obs-request-id: BF2600000163D80E4C5F20FDD5BD0085
x-obs-bucket-location: ap-southeast-1
Content-Type: application/xml
x-obs-version: 3.0
x-obs-id-2: 32AAAQAAEAABAAAQAAEAABAAAQAAEAABCS8wS9l00ll4oMWmdniV7XmdAvfewrQq
Date: WED, 01 Jul 2015 02:23:25 GMT
Content-Length: 0

In this response, x-obs-version: 3.0 indicates that the bucket is stored in the OBS 3.0. If this header does not exist or the value of this header is displayed otherwise, the bucket is stored in the OBS 2.0.

For more information about the Head Bucket API, see Obtaining Bucket Metadata.