Use cases

If a deployment must support a large number of S3 buckets (greater than 1K) and a large number of users (greater than 1K), then it makes sense to enable Container Mode. Enabling container mode triggers additional fields to get logged in the access logs and enables new internal structures and flows that can impact performance negatively. A system administrator must understand these impacts before deciding to enable Container Mode.

In addition, Container Mode does not support all functionality available in legacy Vault Mode. System administrators must understand and address these differences before choosing to enable Container Mode.

Enabling Container Mode is an irreversible process. An IBM COS system enabled for Container Mode cannot be taken back into Vault Mode.

Container Mode provides flexibility for service providers to choose whether to have full control over bucket resources and disable end user capabilities.