Creating a cloud connection

By creating a cloud connection, you enable the server to access a cloud storage system for read and write operations.

Before you begin

Before you can create a cloud connection, ensure that you have the information that is required to access your cloud storage system. This connection information typically includes a user name, cloud type, cloud URL.

The properties of a cloud connection include the following information, based on your cloud provider:
  • The name of the connection that you want to create. Ensure that the name is unique to the server.
  • The server that runs the parent connection. This property is inherited and cannot be changed.
  • The cloud type, for example, Google Cloud Storage.
  • The URL to the cloud provider, Specifies the URL of the cloud environment connection. Based on your cloud provider, you can use a blob service endpoint, region endpoint URL, an Accesser®® IP address, a public authentication endpoint, or a similar value.
  • The identity, specifying the user ID for the cloud that is specified in the URL field. Based on your cloud provider, you can use an access key ID, a user name, a tenant name and user name, or a similar value. The maximum length of the user ID is 255 characters.
  • The bucket name, specifying the name of an AWS S3 or Google Cloud Storage bucket, or an IBM Cloud® Object Storage vault to use with this connection. For the Amazon S3 or IBM Cloud Object Storage cloud types, you can use an existing bucket or allow the Operations Center to create a new bucket.
  • For Microsoft Azure, a shared access signature (SAS) token.
  • For Google Cloud Storage, a key source file. This key is uploaded to the database to connect the server to the cloud. The key content is sent to the server only when a connection is created or modified.

About this task

A cloud connection can be specified when you create a cloud-container storage pool, which you can use to store deduplicated data in your cloud storage system. A cloud connection can also be specified when you create a cloud device class. You can then use the cloud device class to back up a server database to your cloud storage system. You can also specify a cloud device class when you are defining a retention storage pool. By specifying a cloud device class for a retention storage pool, you can copy retention sets to your cloud storage system for long-term storage.

Procedure

To create a cloud connection, complete the following steps:

  1. On the Operations Center menu bar, click Storage > Cloud Connections.
    The Cloud Connections page is displayed.
  2. Click + Create Connection
  3. In the Create Connection dialog, complete the fields and click Create.