About OBS

Comparison Between OBS and On-Premises Storage Servers

In this information era, it becomes increasingly difficult for conventional on-premises storage servers to deal with the fast growing data of enterprises. Table 1 compares OBS with on-premises storage servers.

Table 1 Comparison between OBS and on-premises storage servers

Item

OBS

On-Premises Storage Server

Storage capacity

OBS provides unlimited storage capacity, with data centers deployed across the world. All services and storage nodes are deployed in distributed clusters. You can expand each node or cluster separately, and you never have to worry about running out of space.

Such servers provide confined storage space due to the limited capacity of the hardware devices they use. When the storage space is not sufficient, you need to buy extra disks for manual expansion.

Security

OBS uses HTTPS and SSL protocols and encrypts data during uploads. To keep data transmission and access safe, OBS uses access key IDs (AKs) and secret access keys (SKs) to authenticate user identities and adopts IAM permissions, bucket policies, access control lists (ACLs), and uniform resource locator (URL) validation.

The owner and users are exposed to security risks from cyber attacks, technical vulnerabilities, and accidental operations.

Reliability

The OBS five-level reliability architecture ensures up to 99.9999999999% of durability and up to 99.995% of continuity, much higher than those of the conventional architecture.

Due to limited investment, on-premises storage servers cannot ensure reliability at all levels of media, servers, cabinets, data centers, and regions. Once there is a failure or disaster, it may cause irreversible data loss to enterprises.

Costs

OBS is an out-of-the-box service that has no initial capital investment or time or labor costs and frees you from O&M.

You only need to pay as you go. OBS offers tiered-pricing, meaning the more you use, the more you will save.

The initial deployment of on-premises servers requires high investments and a long construction period, but it quickly lags behind as enterprise businesses change so fast. Additional expenditures are required to ensure security.

Storage capacity

OBS

OBS provides unlimited storage capacity, with data centers deployed across the world. All services and storage nodes are deployed in distributed clusters. You can expand each node or cluster separately, and you never have to worry about running out of space.

On-Premises Storage Server

Such servers provide confined storage space due to the limited capacity of the hardware devices they use. When the storage space is not sufficient, you need to buy extra disks for manual expansion.

Security

OBS

OBS uses HTTPS and SSL protocols and encrypts data during uploads. To keep data transmission and access safe, OBS uses access key IDs (AKs) and secret access keys (SKs) to authenticate user identities and adopts IAM permissions, bucket policies, access control lists (ACLs), and uniform resource locator (URL) validation.

On-Premises Storage Server

The owner and users are exposed to security risks from cyber attacks, technical vulnerabilities, and accidental operations.

Reliability

OBS

The OBS five-level reliability architecture ensures up to 99.9999999999% of durability and up to 99.995% of continuity, much higher than those of the conventional architecture.

On-Premises Storage Server

Due to limited investment, on-premises storage servers cannot ensure reliability at all levels of media, servers, cabinets, data centers, and regions. Once there is a failure or disaster, it may cause irreversible data loss to enterprises.

Costs

OBS

OBS is an out-of-the-box service that has no initial capital investment or time or labor costs and frees you from O&M.

You only need to pay as you go. OBS offers tiered-pricing, meaning the more you use, the more you will save.

On-Premises Storage Server

The initial deployment of on-premises servers requires high investments and a long construction period, but it quickly lags behind as enterprise businesses change so fast. Additional expenditures are required to ensure security.

How to Access OBS

OBS provides various resource management tools. You can use any of the tools listed in Table 2 to access and manage resources in OBS.

Table 2 OBS resource management tools

Tool

Description

How to Use

OBS Console

OBS Console is a web-based GUI for you to easily manage OBS resources.

OBS Browser (abandoned)

OBS Browser has been abandoned since April 15, 2020. Its functions are inherited by the new client tool OBS Browser+ that provides you with better user experience. Download the latest OBS Browser+. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

-

OBS Browser+

OBS Browser+ is an OBS management tool running on the Windows operating system. OBS Browser+ is also a GUI tool that allows you to manage OBS locally and easily.

obsutil

obsutil is a command line tool for accessing OBS. You can use this tool to perform common configurations in OBS. If you are familiar with command line interface (CLI), obsutil is recommended as an ideal tool for batch processing and automated tasks.

obsfs

obsfs, built on the basis of Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE), is a file system tool provided by OBS for mounting parallel file systems to Linux operating systems. It enables you to easily access the infinite storage space in OBS in the same way as you operate a local file system.

SDKs

OBS SDKs encapsulate APIs provided by OBS to simplify user development. Users can directly use API functions provided by the OBS SDKs to obtain the OBS service capabilities.

APIs

With APIs, you can easily access OBS from web applications. By making API calls, you can upload and download data anytime, anywhere, or through any Internet device.

OBS Console

Description

OBS Console is a web-based GUI for you to easily manage OBS resources.

OBS Browser (abandoned)

Description

OBS Browser has been abandoned since April 15, 2020. Its functions are inherited by the new client tool OBS Browser+ that provides you with better user experience. Download the latest OBS Browser+. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

How to Use

-

OBS Browser+

Description

OBS Browser+ is an OBS management tool running on the Windows operating system. OBS Browser+ is also a GUI tool that allows you to manage OBS locally and easily.

obsutil

Description

obsutil is a command line tool for accessing OBS. You can use this tool to perform common configurations in OBS. If you are familiar with command line interface (CLI), obsutil is recommended as an ideal tool for batch processing and automated tasks.

How to Use

obsfs

Description

obsfs, built on the basis of Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE), is a file system tool provided by OBS for mounting parallel file systems to Linux operating systems. It enables you to easily access the infinite storage space in OBS in the same way as you operate a local file system.

How to Use

SDKs

Description

OBS SDKs encapsulate APIs provided by OBS to simplify user development. Users can directly use API functions provided by the OBS SDKs to obtain the OBS service capabilities.

How to Use

APIs

Description

With APIs, you can easily access OBS from web applications. By making API calls, you can upload and download data anytime, anywhere, or through any Internet device.

How to Use

Application Scenarios

OBS solves complex object data storage problems for any scenario

Big Data Analytics

Analysis of Large, Diverse Datasets

OBS provides an elastic storage system that is scalable in real time. When used in combination with big data services on Huawei Cloud, it can dramatically reduce your costs, accelerate innovation, and make data management easier.

Advantages

  • High Performance

    OBS can handle high-volume concurrent connections and sudden traffic bursts. You do not need to worry about capacity. OBS can handle whatever you throw at it.

  • Low Cost

    Scalable resources. You only pay for what you use.

  • High Availability

    OBS delivers 99.995% availability. Your service continuity is guaranteed.

Related Services
Static Website Hosting

Static Website Hosting

OBS offers an affordable and always-available website hosting solution, with auto scaling to cope with variable site traffic. You can use OBS together with CDN and ECS to quickly construct your websites or applications with separately managed dynamic and static content.

Advantages

  • High Performance

    Best possible data access experience: high concurrency, large bandwidth, and low latency

  • Secure and Stable

    With multi-level reliability, OBS delivers excellent data durability and service availability.

  • Low Cost

    Scalable resources. You only pay for what you use.

Related Services
Video on Demand

Video on Demand Streaming

OBS, Media Processing Center (MPC), and Content Delivery Network (CDN) can be used together to build a highly-available VOD platform.

Advantages

  • High Performance

    OBS can handle high-volume concurrent connections and sudden traffic bursts. You do not need to worry about capacity. OBS can handle anything you throw at it.

  • Low Cost

    Scalable resources. You only pay for what you use.

  • High Availability

    OBS delivers 99.995% availability, a level that guarantees the continuity of your services.

Related Services
Gene Sequencing

Gene Sequencing

With a highly reliable, scalable OBS system, you can leverage Huawei Cloud compute services to build a gene sequencing platform that is elastic, efficient, and always available.

Advantages

  • Highly Scalable

    A single bucket can store exabytes of data needed for gene sequencing.

  • Low Cost

    OBS provides lifecycle rules to help you move data into the Archive storage class automatically.

  • Online Distribution

    OBS provides online data distribution. You can deliver data over the Internet with ease.

Related Services
Video Surveillance

Intelligent Video Surveillance

OBS provides highly reliable, inexpensive storage to handle video surveillance data at a massive scale, with high concurrency and low latency.

Advantages

  • High Performance

    OBS supports up to 10 million cameras, without compromising smooth streaming or playback quality.

  • Low Cost

    Scalable resources where you only pay for what you use, and there are no additional hidden O&M costs.

  • Stable

    OBS delivers 12-nines of reliability (99.9999999999%). Your data is extremely secure.

Related Services

Advantages

Build demanding web and mobile applications without any limitations on data storage

  • Peace of Mind

    Achieve up to 12 nines (99.9999999999%) of data durability and 99.995% of service availability.

    Achieve up to 12 nines (99.9999999999%) of data durability and 99.995% of service availability.

  • Guard Data with Strong Security

    With secure authentication, encryption, URL validation, and fine-grained permission control, keep your data safe and protected in storage or during transfer.

    With secure authentication, encryption, URL validation, and fine-grained permission control, keep your data safe and protected in storage or during transfer.

  • High Efficiency

    Enjoy high-performance data storage options with 10 million TPS, 2.4 Gbit/s single-stream upload, and less than 10 ms latency for uploading small objects.

    Enjoy high-performance data storage options with 10 million TPS, 2.4 Gbit/s single-stream upload, and less than 10 ms latency for uploading small objects.

  • Ease of Use

    OBS provides REST APIs and software development kits (SDKs) in multiple languages, and is compatible with all mainstream clients. With it, you can upload, download, and manage your data anytime, and from anywhere.

    OBS provides REST APIs and software development kits (SDKs) in multiple languages, and is compatible with all mainstream clients. With it, you can upload, download, and manage your data anytime, and from anywhere.

Documentation

Videos

Uploading/Downloading (OBS Console)

02:46

Uploading/Downloading (OBS Console)

Uploading/Downloading (OBS Browser)

03:33

Uploading/Downloading (OBS Browser)

OBS Permission Control

04:22

OBS Permission Control

OBS API Quick Start

09:18

OBS API Quick Start