About 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 unlimited storage capacity for objects of any format, catering to the needs of common users, websites, enterprises, and developers. There is no limitation on the storage capacity of the entire OBS system or of a single bucket, and any number of objects can be stored. As a web service, OBS supports APIs over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). You can use OBS Console or OBS tools to access and manage data stored in OBS anytime, anywhere. With OBS SDKs and APIs, you can easily manage data stored in OBS and develop upper-layer applications.

OBS infrastructures are deployed in multiple regions across the globe, which delivers high 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 following:

• A key that specifies the name of an object. An object key is a UTF-8 string up to 1,024 characters long. Each object is uniquely identified by a key within a bucket.
• Metadata that describes an object. The 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 custom metadata.
  • System-defined metadata is automatically assigned by OBS for processing objects. Such metadata includes Date, Content-Length, Last-Modified, ETag, and more.
  • You can specify custom metadata to describe the object when you upload an object to OBS.
• Data that refers to the content of an object.

By means of secondary development based on OBS REST APIs, OBS Console, SDKs, and a variety of tools are provided for you to use OBS. You can also use OBS SDKs and APIs to develop applications customized for your business needs.

Figure 1 Product architecture

Storage Classes

OBS offers the storage classes below to meet your requirements for storage performance and costs. You can change 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 (multiple times per month) accessed files or small files (less than 1 MB). Its application scenarios include big data analytics, mobile apps, hot videos, and social apps.
• Infrequent Access: The Infrequent Access storage class is for storing data that is infrequently (less than 12 times per year) accessed, 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, low latency, and high throughput as the Standard storage class, with a lower cost, but its availability is slightly lower than the Standard storage class.
• Archive: The Archive storage class is ideal for storing data that is rarely (once per year) accessed. Its application scenarios include data archive and 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.

An object uploaded to a bucket inherits the storage class of the bucket by default. You can also specify a storage class for an object when you upload it.

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.

The minimum storage duration is 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 be billed for the storage of 30 days (the minimum storage duration for Infrequent Access).

Accessing OBS

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