Unified file and object access overview

Unified file and object access allows use cases in which you can access data by using object or file interfaces.

Some of the key unified file and object access use cases are:

  • You can use object stores to store large amounts of data. Object stores are highly scalable and are an economical storage solution. To analyze large amounts of data, advanced analytics systems are used. However, porting the data from an object store to a distributed file system that the analytics system requires is complex and time intensive. These scenarios reflect a need to access the object data by using the file interface so that analytics systems can use that data.
  • Accessing object by using file interfaces and accessing file by using object interfaces helps legacy applications that are designed for file to start integrating into the object world after data migration.
  • It allows storage cloud data that is in form of objects to be accessed by using files from applications that are designed to process files.
  • It allows files that are exported by using Network File System (NFS) or Server Message Block (SMB) to be accessible as objects by using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to the end clients. It also allows files available on POSIX to be accessible as objects by using HTTP to the end clients. This enables easy availability of file data on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets that are more suited to REST-based interfaces.
  • Multi-protocol access for file and object in the same namespace allows supporting and hosting data oceans of different types with multiple access options.

    For information about data oceans, see Protocols support overview: Integration of protocol access methods with GPFS.

  • There is a rich set of placement policies for files (by using mmapplypolicy) available with IBM Storage Scale. With unified file and object access, those placement policies can be used for object data.

Unified file and object access allows users to access the same data as an object and as a file. Data can be stored and retrieved through IBM Storage Scale for Object Storage or as files from POSIX, NFS, and SMB interfaces. Unified file and object access provides the following capabilities to users:

  • Ingest data through the object interface and access this data from the file interface.

  • Ingest data through the file interface and access this data from the object interface.

  • Ingest and access same data though object and file interfaces concurrently.

  • Manage authentication and authorization in unified file and object access.

For more information, see Unified file and object access in IBM Storage Scale.

One of the key advantages of unified file and object access is the placement and naming of objects when stored on the file system. For more information, see File path in unified file and object access.