Container Mode Guide
The system supports two different modes of operations: Vault Mode and Container Mode. By default, the system operates in Vault Mode. In Vault Mode, all object I/O occurs at the vault level. Systems can contain a limited number of vaults. Container Mode can be enabled when more buckets than the vault limit would otherwise allow are required. In Container Mode, containers are created inside of vaults. Object I/O occurs on containers instead of vaults.
| Container Mode | Vault Mode |
|---|---|
| Support millions of buckets | Support for a limited number of buckets |
| Support for millions of users | Support for thousands of users |
| Support for fast and high performance listing with index updates (system OPs greatly reduced for listing) | Slow listing and unreliable performance |
| Support for usage based billing based on top-edge requests via access logs | Billing is supported based on estimated usage for storage and network resources on a vault basis |
| Support for self service portal for millions of end users via service API | Provides portal for end users to manage buckets (vaults) |
| Support for S3 Compliant List-Only ACL | S3 ACLs are supported, but as Read-and-List ACL |
| Support for additional S3 APIs (for example, GET SERVICE) | Support for standard S3 APIs previously supported |
Container Mode has the following advantages:
- Isolation of objects between users and tenants
- Security for objects
- Ability to control usage programmatically
- Ability to isolate issues for a user or tenant
Note: This document references other documents that are available in the IBM Documentation. See: IBM Container Mode Credentials Management
API Developer Guide, IBM Container Mode Service API - Bucket Management Guide
and IBM Manager REST API Developer Guide.