Storage is one of the 5 pillars on which OCI is built. Data like transactional data, Compute images, backup of databases, OS, Data from compute instances, etc are stored in storage service of OCI.
This post covers:
- Overview Of Storage Service
- Storage options in OCI & use cases
- Features of Storage service
- Data Transfer Service
Overview Of Storage Service
OCI provides Storage service for storing data. OCI also provides various services like for securing the data stored in storage service and making this data highly available and recover data in failover conditions.
This Video is from our OCI Training in which Oracle ACE Atul Kumar has given a high-level overview of various Storage options available in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Storage Options In OCI
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers three main storage service
Block Volume Service
- Block storage operates at the raw storage device level and manages data as a set of numbered, fixed-size blocks using protocols such as iSCSI.
- Block Volume Service lets you dynamically provision and manage block storage volumes.
- Volume:
- Block Volume: A detachable block storage device that allows you to dynamically
expand the storage capacity of an instance - Boot volume: A detachable boot volume device that contains the image used to boot
a compute instance.
- Block Volume: A detachable block storage device that allows you to dynamically
- We can attach Block volume to instances or databases for storing data.
- You can create, attach, connect, and move volumes, as needed, to meet your storage and application requirements.
- Volume sizes go from 50GB to 32TB in 1GB increments.
Note: Oracle has introduced a new feature of Shareable Block Volume so that you can attach a single block volume to multiple instances. There are two modes to do this Read/Write mode & Read mode.
To know more about Block Volume in OCI click here
Read our blog to know in detail about Compute in OCI.
Use Case
Expanding Instances Storage, instance scaling by creating instances using boot volume, Persistent & Durable Storage.
Check out: 1Z0-1072-20 to know everything about Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2020 Architect Associate.
Object Storage Service
- Object storage is independent of a server and accessed over the Internet
- Data is managed as objects using an API built on standard HTTP verbs
- It is an ideal storage platform to store very large amounts of data.
- It is two-tier architecture
- Standard Tier: Gives the most recent copy of the data when retrieved & the Data retrieval is instantaneous.
- Archive Tier: Rarely accessed data is stored and the minimum retention period is 90 days. Data retrieval is not instantaneous.
- Object storage is replicated across Availability Domains within a region to ensure availability and durability.
- We can store data like Files, Photos, Audio, Video, and other media type.
- We can also upload data in multi-part (part size 10MB- 50GB, part number 10k)
- Supports private access from OCI resources in a VCN through a Service Gateway
- Check our blog in order to deep-dive more into Object storage.
Use Cases
To store any type of data structured & unstructured data like images, audio, video, and other types, Big Data Hadoop Support, for backups, Log data, and large scale datasets.
Also read: Everything you need to know about Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compartments
File Storage Service (FSS)
- Fully managed file storage service
- NFS3 along with Network Lock Manager (NLM)
- We can access the file system from outside the VCN using a fast connect & IPsec VPN.
- We can create a shareable file system using FSS to make it highly available.
- Starts from few KBs to 8 Exabytes (EB)
- Data & Metadata are encrypted at rest
- Using a snapshot feature, you can create up to 10,000 read-only snapshots per file system which we can use for backup
- Create and manage file storage using Console, REST APIs, CLI, and Terraform
Use Cases
Shared file storage for lift & shift applications, structured & unstructured data, Big data, container-based applications like Docker & Kubernetes.
Local NVMe Storage
- Local NVMe-based SSD temporary storage with very high IOPS and low latency is available for the Storage Optimized Instance Type (e.g. BM.DenseIO2.52).
- NVMe (non-volatile memory express) is a host controller interface and storage protocol created to accelerate the transfer of data between enterprise and client systems and solid-state drives (SSDs) over a computer’s high-speed Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) bus.
- Protecting NVMe device failure using raid1, raid6, and raid10.
- Local NVMe SSDs provide very high-performance storage and are ideal for the most demanding workloads. You can get more information on NVMe SSD performance in the specification here.
Use Case
Best choice for workloads with extremely demanding IO such as Big Data and HPC processing.
Features Of Storage Services
1) Cloning: It will help you create a copy of the boot volume so that you do not need to create a backup and restore it. We can use the cloned block volume for creating an instance or in failover.
2) High Availability: Some of the storage services are highly available like Object Storage & File Storage Service. These storage services are accessed by resources in different ADs and regions.
Read our blog to know more about OCI Regions
3) Disaster Recovery: The process of recovering data in case of failover of an AD or region Like we store a backup of databases in Object storage in other AD so that in case of failure we can recover the data.
4) Encryption: Data at rest in Storage services are encrypted for security reasons by Oracle managed keys. We can also provide encryption using Key Management service in OCI.
Check our blog to know more about KMS in OCI.
5) Scalability: We can scale up and down the storage services (increasing & decreasing) depending on our needs.
Read our blog to know how to resize Block volume.
Data Transfer Service
- Offline Data Migration Service that lets you securely move petabytes-scale datasets from customer’s data center to Object/Archive Storage on OCI
- Data Transfer service should be used when uploading using public internet connection is not feasible like Large Data or Slow speed
- Data Transfer Service is also an option when FastConnect is not an option
- FastConnect is recommended when you regularly need fast connectivity between On-Premise and Cloud whereas DTS is for one-offs
- Recommendation for using Data Transfer Service is when upload takes longer than 1-2 weeks
Check out our blog to know more about Data Transfer services.
Related/Further Readings
- IAM in OCI
- Networking in OCI
- Compute in OCI
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI): Region, AD, Tenancy, Compartment, VCN, IAM, Storage Service
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gouthamraj says
Good Blog, well described, Thanks for sharing this information.
Surbhi Sharma says
Hi Gouthamraj
Glad you liked our post. Stay Tuned for further more informative blogs
Regards,
Surbhi
Team k21