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S3 Service

Introduction

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. An S3 instance is created with the same name as the project and a unique UID.
  2. A user is created on each available SCS3 endpoint using the generated UID and the S3 instance name.
  3. You are redirected to the S3 service page where you can:

View S3 Project Information

On the S3 service main page, you’ll see a column for each available SCS3 endpoint. Each column displays details specific to that endpoint, including:

  • 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 change this click the edit icon next to your current quota limit. In the popup window that appears, set the desired value and click Save. You may set a quota between 0 and 5 TiB. To request more, open a service request with cloud-support@switch.ch.

Manage Access Keys

Access keys are required for authentication when using CLI tools to interact with the S3 service. They act as secure credentials, enabling users to access and manage objects and resources within the storage system. Without a valid access key, most operations, such as uploading or downloading files, cannot be performed.

Each access key is tied to a specific endpoint (or cluster). You will need to generate new access keys and configure them for each cluster separately.

Create an Access Key

  1. Click Create Access Key.
  2. Enter a Name for the access key in the popup.
  3. Copy the secret key (displayed only once) and store it securely.

Delete an Access Key

  1. Locate the key in the Access Key table.
  2. Click Delete next to the relevant key.
  3. Click Confirm to delete access key.

CLI setup instructions for AWS CLI or Rclone can be found under User Authentication.

Manage Buckets

In the Buckets table, you can see basic information for all active buckets of the current project. You can create new buckets or delete existing ones directly from this table.

Create a Bucket

  1. Click Create Bucket.
  2. Enter the Name for the new bucket.
  3. (Optional) Enable the object lock feature by selecting the checkbox.
  4. Click Create Bucket.

Delete a Bucket

  1. Click Delete next to the bucket you wish to remove.
  2. Click Confirm to delete the bucket.

Warning

Deleting a bucket permanently removes all objects stored in it.

Edit the Project Name

In the top right corner, click Edit, enter the new name, and click Save.

Delete the S3 Project

To delete the S3 project:

  1. Click Delete in the top right corner of the S3 service page.
  2. Enter the project name to confirm deletion.
  3. Click Delete Project and Associated Resources.

Important

When the S3 project is deleted, the S3 service is deactivated. You can always re-activate the S3 service from your project's main page.

Warning

Deactivating the service will irreversibly delete all associated resources.