Cloud storage options

The existing storage types available in our clouds are:

• Volume storage: The standard storage unit for cloud computing; can be attached to and detached from an instance.
• Ephemeral/Disk storage: Virtual local disk storage tied to the lifecycle of a single instance.
• Object storage: Non-hierarchical storage where data is created or uploaded in whole-file form
• Shared filesystem storage: Storage in the cloud shared filesystem; must be configured on each instance where it is mounted.

Attributes of each storage type are compared in the following table:

Attribute	Volume storage	Ephemeral/Disk storage	Object storage	Shared filesystem storage
Default storage option	Yes	Yes	No	No
Can be accessed via Web browser	No	No	Yes	No
Access can be restricted for specific source IP ranges	Yes	Yes	Yes (S3 ACL)	Yes
Can be mounted on a single VM	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Can be mounted on multiple VMs (and across projects) simultaneously	No	No	No	Yes
Automatic backups	No (Yes with snapshots)	No	No	Yes (nightly to tape)
Suitable for write once, read only, and public access	No	No	Yes	No
Suitable for data/files that change frequently	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Hierarchical filesystem	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Suitable for long-term storage	Yes	No	Yes	No
Deleted automatically upon deletion of VM	No	Yes	No	No
Standard magnitude of allocation	GB	GB	TB	TB