How-tos
Getting Started with IBM Object Storage for Bluemix
October 20, 2015 | Written by: Dharmesh Bhakta
Categorized: How-tos
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The IBM Object Storage for Bluemix beta provides developers and IT operations managers with durable, highly-scalable and highly available object storage. It’s used to store their unstructured data and build applications around their data content. It’s easy to use, with only few clicks to get started!
The IBM Object Storage for Bluemix beta is available under the service catalog. If you have not signed up for Bluemix, you’re just a few clicks away and it’s free!
To use this service, you must add it to your organization’s space. Once added, it can be used in three different ways:
- Use the easy-to-use simple web interface to store and retrieve your files
- Bind the service instance with your Bluemix application
- Use the service credentials directly with any third-party application or application running outside of Bluemix
In this post, I will cover the first option.
Object Storage’s dashboard to store/retrieve your files
Let’s get started by adding an instance of the Object Storage Service to your space.
- Go to the Bluemix catalog and select the Service section. Select the Storage category, and then select Object Storage.
- Select your space, app, service name, and plan and click Create. It should take several seconds to provision your object storage instance.
Note: If you initially choose the “Leave Unbound” option for the App field, you can still bind the service instance to your Bluemix application after you complete the configuration.
When your Object Storage is provisioned, it automatically take you to the Object Storage instance dashboard. The Object Storage instance dashboard provides storage usage information and the Object browser. You can also see your instance information in the Object Storage for Bluemix service instance dashboard.
Introduction to the Object Storage instance dashboard
The new Object Storage service dashboard lets you quickly create and manage your Object Storage containers, view usage, and manage object files stored in your object containers.
At the top you will see the usage statistics pertaining to this instance. It displays the total number of containers, number of files and total storage used.
Right below the usage statistics is the object browser. It allows you to create object containers (it’s similar to buckets with Amazon S3) and manage files stored in them. You use the Action drop-down to add container, delete container, add file, delete file and download file. You can use the search bar to search the files.
The Object browser also supports a drag-and-drop feature. If you want to add multiple files, you can just drag files from your system’s file browser and drop them in the object listing pane. It will show progress as each file is uploaded to your object store.
Try it yourself and let us know what you think! This simple web interface provides basic features to manage your data in the cloud. We plan to enhance the interface with more robust features after the beta concludes.
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