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Connecting to IBM Cloud Object Storage

Connecting to IBM Cloud Object Storage

To use some features of IBM Cloud VPC such as importing or exporting custom images, or using flow log collectors, you must have a service instance of IBM Cloud® Object Storage available. Use the following information to learn how to connect to IBM Cloud® Object Storage from your virtual private cloud.

IBM Cloud Object Storage is a web-scale platform that stores unstructured data. It provides reliability, security, availability, and disaster recovery without replication.

Information that is stored with IBM Cloud Object Storage is encrypted and dispersed across multiple geographic locations. It is accessible through an implementation of the S3 API. This service uses the distributed storage technologies that are provided by the IBM Cloud® Object Storage System. For more information, see What is IBM Cloud Object Storage?.

IBM Cloud Object Storage direct endpoints for use with VPC

To send a REST API request, you must set a target endpoint or a URL, and each IBM Cloud Object Storage location must have its own set of URLs. Direct endpoints provide your servers with high-speed, direct connections to IBM Cloud services, which incur no added bandwidth costs. With the IBM Cloud Object Storage direct endpoint, a VPC can connect to an Object Storage bucket located anywhere in the world. For more information about resiliency and direct endpoints for IBM Cloud Object Storage, see Endpoints and storage locations.

  • A VPC client also has access to the IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket over the public endpoint.
  • A VPC client has access to the IBM Cloud Object Storage configuration API over the public endpoint and direct endpoint. You can use the IBM Cloud Object Storage configuration API to configure some IBM Cloud Object Storage features on buckets, and to view bucket metadata.
  • A VPC client can access an IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket when context-based restrictions are in place by setting the network zone to the VPC ID. VPC clients can't access buckets that are restricted to using a traditional bucket firewall.

How to connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage from a VPC

  1. Provision an IBM Cloud Object Storage instance. For more information, see Getting started with IBM Cloud Object Storage.
  2. Create an IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket.
  3. Use the endpoint to communicate with your IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket.