1. Concepts Guide
  2. File Storage Overview

9 File Storage Overview

The File Storage service provides a durable, scalable, secure, enterprise-grade network file system.

The File Storage service supports these protocols:

  • Network File System version 4.1 (NFSv4.1)

  • Network File System version 4.0 (NFSv4)

  • Network File System version 3.0 (NFSv3)

  • Server Message Block (SMBv2 - SMBv3.1) – Requires Active Directory

For step-by-step instructions for managing File Storage, refer to File System Storage in the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance User Guide.

File Storage Connectivity

You can connect to a File Storage service file system from any instance in your Virtual Cloud Network (VCN).

Suitable Workloads

The File Storage service is designed to meet the needs of applications and users that need an enterprise file system across a wide range of use cases, including the following:

  • General Purpose File Storage: Access to a pool of file systems to manage growth of structured and unstructured data.

  • Big Data and Analytics: Run analytic workloads and use shared file systems to store persistent data.

  • Lift and Shift of Enterprise Applications: Migrate existing Oracle applications that need NFS storage, such as Oracle E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft.

  • Databases and Transactional Applications: Run test and development workloads with Oracle, MySQL, or other databases.

  • Backups, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery: Host a secondary copy of relevant file systems from on premises to the cloud for backup and disaster recovery purposes.

  • Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX)-compliant file system

  • MicroServices and Docker: Deliver stateful persistence for containers. Easily scale as your container-based environments grow.

Data Protection with Snapshots

The File Storage service supports snapshots for data protection of your file system. Snapshots are a consistent, point-in-time view of your file systems. Snapshots are copy-on-write, and scoped to the entire file system. The File Storage service encrypts all file system and snapshot data at rest. You can take as many snapshots as you need.

For data protection, you can use a tool that supports NFS to copy your data to a different file system, object storage, or remote location.

For best performance, use the parallel tar (partar) and parallel copy (parcp) tools provided in the File Storage Parallel File Toolkit for this purpose. These tools work best with parallel workloads and requests. The Parallel File Toolkit is available for Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS. You can use rsync or regular tar for other operating system types. See Installing the Parallel File Tools for more information.