Using Object Storage as the instance home

The instance home can be associated with the IBM Analytics Engine serverless instance:

At the time the instance is created
After the instance was created by using the instance_home API

Defining IBM Cloud Object Storage as the instance home

To define Object Storage as the instance home for your IBM Analytics Engine serverless instance:

Provision an Object Storage service instance in IBM Cloud®. See Creating a new service instance.
After the instance was provisioned, generate service credentials and retrieve the HMAC access key ID.
Use the retrieved credentials to create an instance.

Getting the Object Storage credentials

You need to add the access credentials to the Object Storage instance in the JSON payload when you create an IBM Analytics Engine serverless instance and specify the instance home storage for the instance.

To get the Object Storage credentials:

Select the Object Storage instance under Storage from your IBM Cloud® resource list.
Select Service credentials in the navigation pane.
Click New credential and choose the following options:
1. Enter a credential name of your choice.
2. Choose the Writer role.
3. Under Advanced options:
- Choose Auto Generate for the Service ID.
- Turn on the option to include HMAC credential.
1. Click Add.
Figure 1. Create credential window

What are the Object Storage credentials

To get the credentials of the Object Storage instance you created to reference from your IBM Analytics Engine serverless instance:

Select the credential name you created and copy the credentials to the clipboard.
View the credentials that you copied. You will see something like what is shown in the following example:
```
{
  "apikey": "XXXXXXX",
  "cos_hmac_keys": {
    "access_key_id": "aaaa1111bbbbb222222ccccc3333333ddddd44444",
    "secret_access_key": "ZZZZYYYYYXXXXXXWWWWWVVVVVVUUUUU"
    },
    "endpoints": ...
}
```
Note:
- Currently, the IBM Analytics Engine serverless plan supports HMAC style credentials only.
- Pick private endpoints for consumption.
- The endpoint to your IBM Cloud Object Storage instance should be the direct endpoint. You can find the direct endpoint to your IBM Cloud Object Storage instance on the IBM Cloud® dashboard by selecting cross regional resiliency, the location, and then clicking on your service instance. You can copy the direct endpoint from the Endpoints page.

Associate the instance home using REST API

If you did not associate an instance home with your instance at the time you created it, you can associate it after the instance was created by using the following REST API. In the near future, you will also be able to do this through Console UI and CLI.

Note: You can associate an instance home only once during the lifetime of the instance.

To associate an instance home:

curl -X PUT https://api.<region>.ae.cloud.ibm.com/v3/analytics_engines/<instance-id>/instance_home --header "Authorization: Bearer <IAM token>" -H "content-type: application/json" -d @instance-home.json

where instance-home.json has the following format:

{
  "instance_id": "CLOUD_OBJECT_STORAGE_INSTANCE_GUID",
  "provider": "ibm-cos",
  "type": "objectstore",
  "region": "REGION_OF_CLOUD_OBJECT_STORAGE_INSTANCE",
  "endpoint": "https://s3.direct.us-south.cloud-object-storage.appdomain.cloud",
  "hmac_access_key": "CLOUD_OBJECT_STORAGE_HMAC_ACCESS_KEY",
  "hmac_secret_key": "LOUD_OBJECT_STORAGE_HMAC_SECRET_KEYE"
}