What is OSS
Object Storage Service (OSS) is a secure, low-cost, and durable cloud storage service provided by Alibaba Cloud. You can store large amounts of data in the cloud. OSS is designed for 99.9999999999% (12 nines) of data durability and 99.995% of service availability. OSS is similar to AWS S3 for those familiar with other public cloud platforms.
OSS Key features
- Retention policy
- Control access to data
- Zone-disaster recovery
- Automatically delete multiple objects at a specified point in time
- Download objects
- Upload objects
What is OSS Life Cycle policy?
In Alibaba Cloud, this allows you to manage objects efficiently and minimize costs throughout the lifecycle of the objects in your instance. Lifecycle settings create a set of rules that help define the actions that an OSS bucket instance must perform on a group of objects. OSS allows you to configure lifecycle rules to delete expired objects and parts or convert the storage class of expired objects to IA or Archive. A lifecycle rule takes effect 48 hours after it is configured or modified.
Requirements
You will need an Alibaba Cloud account with a valid payment method.
How to create an OSS Life Cycle Policy
Task 1: create a new OSS bucket
- On the Alibaba Console search and select Object Storage Service (OSS):
- On the new page, click on Buckets then Create Bucket:
- On the Create Bucket page, fill in the required information and click OK. Some things to note;
- Your bucket name must be globally unique
- Storage Class, Region, and Zone-redundant Storage cannot be changed after the bucket is created
Task 2: Configure Life Cycle rule
- Click on the newly created Bucket:
- On the next page, select Basic Settings:
- Next, select Configure and click on Create Rule
- On the Life Cycle rule page, you need to specify the following settings as labeled in the screenshot:
- First, you need to enable the rule
- Then choose whether the rule should apply to certain objects within your bucket of the entire Bucket
- Then choose whether you want to use the validity period given in days or expiration date, where you choose the date after which the object will move to another storage class
- Transit to IA Storage Class: The storage class of objects is automatically converted from Standard to IA 60 days after the objects are last modified. The IA storage class is suitable for data that is infrequently accessed. You may be charged data retrieval fees when you access IA objects.
- Transit to Archive Storage Class: The storage class of objects is automatically converted from Standard or IA to Archive 180 days after the objects are last modified. You must take a few minutes to restore Archive objects before you can access them. The Archive storage class is suitable for data that is infrequently accessed. You may be charged data retrieval fees when you access Archive objects
- Transit to Cold Archive Storage Class: The storage class of objects is automatically converted from Standard, IA, or Archive to Cold Archive 200 days after the objects are last modified. The Cold Archive storage class is suitable for data that is rarely accessed. You may be charged data retrieval fees when you access Cold Archive objects.
- After making the necessary selections, click OK and you are set.
Conclusion
Life cycle policies are very helpful when you need the means to manage your object stored in OSS for long periods. You create the rule once and the rest is handled by OSS. Multiple life cycles rules can be created for different buckets as needed.
