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S3 Service

Switch Cloud S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a scalable object storage service designed for storing, retrieving, and managing large amounts of unstructured data. It is widely used for backups, media storage, application data, and archiving. Our S3-compatible storage service is built on Ceph, an open-source distributed storage system, and is accessible via standard S3 APIs, making it compatible with tools like AWS CLI and s3cmd.

Important

The Portal provides a limited set of actions for managing the S3 service. For advanced data management and additional features, please refer to Switch Cloud S3.

Provision and Use the S3 Service

When you activate the S3 service for your project, the following backend tasks are performed:

  1. S3 Instance Creation:
    An S3 instance is created with the same name and code as the project and a unique UID.
  2. Endpoint User Setup:
    A user is created on each available SCS3 endpoint using the generated UID and the S3 instance name.
  3. Service Interface in the Portal:
    Once provisioned, the S3 service page becomes available. From here you can navigate through the following tabs:

Authorisation

Manage Access Keys

Access keys are used to authenticate applications with the S3 API. They act as secure credentials required when using CLI tools such as AWS CLI or Rclone to interact with the S3 service.

Each access key is tied to a specific SCS3 endpoint. You will need to create keys separately for each endpoint.

Create an Access Key

  1. Click Create Access Key.
  2. Enter a Name for the access key.
  3. Copy the Secret Key shown in the popup (you'll only see it once).

Delete an Access Key

  1. Locate the key in the Access Key table.
  2. Click Delete next to the key.
  3. Click Confirm to finalize the deletion.

Further setup details are available under User Authentication.

Bucket Management

Manage Buckets

Buckets are containers for storing objects in the S3 service. They provide a structured way to organise your data and control access to it.

Create a Bucket

  1. Click Create Bucket.
  2. Enter the Name of the new bucket.
  3. (Optional) Enable Object Lock for immutability.
  4. Click Create Bucket.

Delete a Bucket

  1. Click Delete next to the bucket.
  2. Confirm the action in the popup.

Warning

Deleting a bucket is not allowed as long as it contains objects.

Details

View S3 Project Information

The Details tab lists the S3 instance across each available endpoint. Each row includes:

  • S3 Endpoint.
  • Project Name.
  • Status: Active, Creating, Deleting, Failed.
  • Updated At and Created At: timestamps.
  • UID: the unique identifier of your user on this endpoint - useful for creating bucket policies.
  • Quota: the total storage capacity allocated, with usage shown in parentheses.

This multi-endpoint layout helps you track your S3 resources across different SCS3 clusters or storage backends (SSD vs. HDD).

Set Quota

By default the max quota for each endpoint is set to 5 TiB. To modify:

  1. Click the Edit icon next to the quota value.
  2. Set the new value (between 0 and 5 TiB).
  3. Click Save.

To request a quota increase, contact cloud-support@switch.ch.