Configuration of buckets and variants

The storage system includes buckets, which store blobs. Buckets include variants, which are versions of the buckets. Blobs are stored in the variants. You must configure at least one bucket and variant for storage to operate.

A bucket is a collection of data objects that are stored in variants. A variant is a version of the bucket. Each variant can have a different configuration (for example, encryption settings, lifespan settings). A variant within a bucket is identified by a unique variant identifier (0 - 63).

When you first configure storage in an installation of AS4 Microservice, the following default values are used:

• The first bucket is named 1st_provisioned.
• The first variant is named 0.

When you set up your storage system, you must decide how you want to use buckets and variants to storage the different kinds of information that flow through AS4 Microservice.

For example, you can set up the following two buckets:

• A bucket for non-repudiation information.

  This information is all of the raw data that is sent or received for all AS4 requests and responses. The information in this bucket would be saved to an external directory, where the customer can archive it for their own purposes. The divulge feature of storage and the system properties file are used to set up this process.

• A bucket for all other data besides non-repudiation information that needs to be stored in the AS4 workflows. The default bucket and variant can be used for this purpose.

  Examples of this kind of data include:

  • Payload data sent to the backend of IBM® Sterling B2B Integrator.
  • Attachments after MIME parsing.