About Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) product, which provides an enterprise-grade, large-scale, object storage solution for files and unstructured data.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic vs. Other Storage Solutions

Storage is a fundamental requirement for any enterprise application workload. Traditional storage solutions pose certain scalability, performance, and management challenges that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic helps you overcome.

  • With direct attached storage, such as the hard disk drive in a laptop, the operating system underlying the applications manages data storage, retrieval, and organization through a file system, which is a schema that the operating system uses to organize data on locally attached disks. Direct attached storage provides convenient, low latency, durable storage. However, because storage capacity is spread between isolated devices, direct attached storage does not scale well.

  • In network-attached storage (NAS), the storage device is physically separate from the servers hosting the applications. To the application hosts, the storage device is available as a network drive. A network file system on the storage device manages data storage, retrieval, and organization. NAS enables applications running on multiple hosts to share storage. It enables centralized management of storage resources and high performance over a local network. But this architecture is feasible only within a limited geographical area, and it offers limited room for scaling. Like in directly attached storage, in NAS as well, applications rely on the underlying operating system and on the network file system of the storage device.
  • Block storage enables applications such as OLTP databases that have high IOPS (input/output operations per second) requirements to store and retrieve data efficiently, by bypassing the host operating system and interacting directly with virtual block devices. Chunks of data are stored in blocks, each with an address, but with no other metadata. Applications decide where data is stored, and they retrieve data by calling the appropriate block addresses directly. Block storage optimizes storage for IOPS and block-based access and provides POSIX-compliant file systems for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic instances. It is limited in terms of scalability and does not support the definition of granular metadata for stored data.

  • Object storage provides an optimal blend of performance, scalability, and manageability when storing large amounts of unstructured data. Multiple storage nodes form a single, shared, horizontally scalable pool in which data is stored as objects (blobs of data) in a flat hierarchy of containers. Each object stores data, the associated metadata, and a unique ID. You can assign custom metadata to containers and objects, making it easier to find, analyze, and manage data. Applications use the unique object IDs to access data directly via REST API calls. Object storage is simple to use, performs well, and scales to a virtually unlimited capacity.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic provides a low cost, reliable, secure, and scalable object-storage solution for storing unstructured data and accessing it anytime from anywhere. It is ideal for data backup, archival, file sharing, and for storing large amounts of unstructured data like logs, sensor-generated data, and VM images.

Features of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) product, which provides an enterprise-grade, large-scale, object storage solution for files and unstructured data.

You can use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic to back up content to an off-site location, programmatically store and retrieve content, and share content with peers. The following are the features of the service:

Object storage

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic stores data as objects within a flat hierarchy of containers.

  • An object is most commonly created by uploading a file. It can also be created from ephemeral unstructured data. Objects are created within a container. A single object can hold up to 5 GB of data, but multiple objects can be linked together to hold more than 5 GB of contiguous data.
  • A container is a user-created resource, which can hold an unlimited number of objects, unless you specify a quota for the container. Note that containers cannot be nested.

Custom metadata can be defined for both objects and containers.

Replication within the data center

All objects or containers created in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic are replicated to multiple separate storage nodes in the data center. If one of the nodes fails, other copies of the object or container will continue to be available.

Note that by default, data is eventually consistent across the nodes in the data center. When an object or container is created or modified, it is not replicated instantaneously to the other nodes. Until the replication is completed, a container or an object's data may not be consistent across the nodes. Over time, all changes to all objects or containers are replicated, and the data becomes consistent across the nodes.

Automatic error detection and healing

Object copies are actively scanned for data corruption. If a bad copy is found, it is replaced, automatically, with a new copy.

Fine-grained read/write access control to containers

Read and write access to an object is controlled via access control lists for its container. Each container can be assigned its own read and write access control lists. By default, access to a container and its objects is private (that is only the user who created the container can access it), but read access can be made public if required.

Multiple Oracle-provided interfaces

You can access Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic using any of the following interfaces:
  • Web Console

    You can use a web-based graphical user interface to easily manage containers and objects in your service instances.

    (Not available on Oracle Cloud at Customer)
  • RESTful Web Service API

    Your applications can access Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic programmatically using calls to a RESTful web service, which is compatible with OpenStack Swift. The service can be accessed from anywhere over the Internet, at any time, and from any device.

  • Java Library

    A Java library that wraps the RESTful web service is available. No special hardware is required to start using the service.

  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Storage Software Appliance

    Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Storage Software Appliance is a tool that you can install on-premises and then use to easily connect your on-premises applications and workflows to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic.

  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic File Transfer Manager API

    The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic File Transfer Manager API is a Java library that provides a simple interface to upload or download individual and multiple objects to standard and archive containers in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic.

  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic File Transfer Manager CLI

    The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic File Transfer Manager CLI is a cross-platform Java-based command line tool that you can use to manage containers and objects in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic.

  • Temporary URL

    You can create time-limited temporary URLs to provide secure, temporary access to download an object in your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic account.

See Interfaces to Object Storage Classic.

Certified third-party clients

(Not available on Oracle Cloud at Customer)

A wide range of third-party products are certified for use as gateways and clients to store and manage your data in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic. Oracle continues to add to the list of certified third-party clients.

See Certified Third-Party Products.

Replication to a geographically distant data center

(Not available on Oracle Cloud at Customer)

For the accounts created after March 2018, the replication policy is set to any, by default, in the account.

With the any policy set by default at the account level, you can now create a container and set any authorized replication policy to the container. See About Replication Policy for Your Object Storage Classic Instance.

For the accounts created before March 2018:

After activating your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic subscription, you must choose a replication policy, which defines your primary data center and also specifies whether your data should be replicated to a geographically distant (secondary) data center. Data is written to the primary data center and replicated asynchronously to the secondary data center. The primary and secondary data centers are eventually consistent. In addition to being billed for storage capacity used at each data center, you will also be billed for bandwidth used during replication between data centers.

Note:

After you select a replication policy, you cannot change the policy.

Data in containers of the Archive storage class is currently not replicated to the secondary data center, even if a replication policy is selected for the account.

For information about the available policies, see About Replication Policy for Accounts Created Before March 2018.

Global namespace URL to access the service

(Not available on Oracle Cloud at Customer)

Regardless of the data center where your service instance is provisioned, you can access Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic by using a global namespace URL. Requests sent to the global namespace URL are routed to the data center where your service instance is provisioned.

Note:

You can find the global namespace URL for your service instance in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Classic Console.

If the primary data center is unavailable, read requests to the global namespace URL are routed to the secondary data center. This is known as failover. While the primary data center is unavailable, write requests will fail with the 403 – Forbidden error. When the primary data center is available again, all requests to the global namespace URL are routed to the primary data center. This is known as failback.

Note:

During failover and failback, the DNS records of your service instance’s global namespace URL are updated to point to the currently active data center. But for a short while after the DNS records are updated, usually a few minutes, requests to the global namespace URL may return a 500-series error. This error occurs because propagation of the DNS changes across all the intermediate nodes on the Internet between your client and Oracle Public Cloud may not yet have been completed. To continue using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic during DNS propagation, you can send requests directly to the URL of the active data center (see About REST URLs for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic Resources). In the following situations, DNS propagation can take longer than a few minutes:
  • ISP DNS resolvers set their own DNS TTL values. Check about this with your ISP provider.
  • Long-running network clients may cache resolved DNS records. For information about tuning the DNS host name caching behavior on your client, see the documentation for your programming platform.

Low-cost data archival

(Not available on Oracle Cloud at Customer)

In metered accounts, you can create containers of two storage classes, Standard (default) and Archive. You can use Archive containers to store large data sets that you don't need to access frequently, at a fraction of the cost of storing data in Standard containers. Note that to download data stored in Archive containers, you must first restore the objects. The restoration process can take up to four hours depending on the size of the object. A few features, such as bulk upload and deletion are not supported for Archive containers. Archive containers are ideal for storing data such as email archives, data backups, and digital video masters. For information about the pricing and other terms for the Archive storage class in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic, go to https://cloud.oracle.com/storage-classic?tabID=1406491833493.

CORS support

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) allows browser-based programs (like JavaScript) to access resources in another domain. This enables web applications to access Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic, overcoming the Same-Origin policy that’s used by browsers to prevent access to resources in other domains.

Setting a Container-Specific Replication Policy

You can specify a different replication policy for a container other than the policy that's defined for your service instance. The container-specific policy overrides the policy that’s set for the service instance. This enables you to control, at a more granular level, what data gets replicated to a geographical distant data center.

See Setting a Container-Specific Policy Using the REST API.

Making Objects Immutable

You can make an object immutable by setting it’s Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) policy when uploading it to the container to prevent the users from modifying or deleting it for a specified duration.

See Making an Object Immutable.

You can make the objects in your container immutable by setting the WORM policy for your container to prevent the users from modifying and deleting the objects in the container for a specified duration. The container-level WORM policy applies to all the objects that are uploaded to the container, unless an object has it’s own object-level WORM policy set during upload.

See Making Objects in a Container Immutable.

Architectural Overview

Not Oracle Cloud Machine This topic does not apply to Oracle Cloud Machine.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic architecture is highly available and redundant. It provides support for external access methods, including customer applications, Java SDK, and REST clients.

When objects are stored in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic, the data is replicated across multiple storage nodes in the data center. This replication strategy ensures that stored object data can survive hardware failure. There can only be one Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic instance per identity domain.

The following diagram presents an architectural overview of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic: