Which one is the Best? (EVS, OBS & SFS)
Hi🙋♂️, In this article I will try to explain how to use Huawei Cloud Storage Services such as EVS, OBS and SFS and their differences with each other just a little.👌
Introduction🧾
Huawei Cloud created services for people and enterprises can use it for storage their data in different types. Right now there is three types of Storage Services Huawei Cloud presents. You can use them for Archive storage, daily use cloud storage, back-end server for a static web server or more. EVS is one of them. Let’s start with it.👍
Elastic Volume Service (EVS) offers scalable block storage for ECSs. With high reliability, high performance, and rich specifications, EVS disks can be used for distributed file systems, development and test environments, data warehouse applications, and high-performance computing (HPC) scenarios to meet diverse service requirements.
We can define EVS as a hard disk that you can use it when you attach to your computer as long as it is in the same AZ with your ECS.
Object Storage Service (OBS) is a scalable service that provides secure, reliable, and cost-effective cloud storage for massive amounts of data.
OBS provides unlimited storage capacity for objects of any format, catering to the needs of common users, websites, enterprises, and developers. There is no limitation on the storage capacity of the entire OBS system or of a single bucket, and any number of objects can be stored. As a web service, OBS supports APIs over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). You can use OBS Console or OBS tools to access and manage data stored in OBS anytime, anywhere. With OBS SDKs and APIs, you can easily manage data stored in OBS and develop upper-layer applications.
Huawei Cloud deploys OBS infrastructures in multiple regions across the globe, delivering high scalability and reliability. You can deploy OBS in specific regions for faster access at an affordable price.
Scalable File Service (SFS) provides scalable, high-performance file storage. With SFS, you can enjoy shared file access spanning multiple ECSs. SFS supports the Network File System (NFS) protocol. You can seamlessly integrate existing applications and tools with the service.
SFS provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI). On the GUI, users can create and configure file systems, saving effort in deploying, resizing, and optimizing file systems.
In addition, SFS features high reliability and availability. It can be elastically expanded, and it performs better as its capacity grows. The service is suitable for a wide range of scenarios, including media processing, file sharing, content management and web services, big data, and analytic applications.
SFS is a service that you can use your storage in multiple ECS’s and you can see real time changes in it.
Let’s hop on to demonstration, the differences in these services going to be explaned at the end of article.😎
Elastic Volume Service Demonstration(Windows)🗄
First of all you need a ECS to use this EVS Service as a storage.
If you had already an ECS and use Elastic Volume Service(EVS) as a service to storage your data of your existing ECS, continue.
First we need to buy an EVS from Service Console of Huawei Cloud. Service List > Storage > Elastic Volume Server. Find and click it.
Then click the Buy Disk button at the upper right corner to purchase an EVS Disk for your ECS.
During the purchase you can name the EVS, configure the disk specifications but most importantly, you need to select the same AZ as the AZ your ECS you want to attach.📎
Click next and buy disk. After creating an EVS you need to attach it to your ECS to use it. Go to EVS Console, find your EVS and click Attach.
Select the ECS you want to attach.
EVS is attached but we need to initialize it before we can use. Hop in to remote login to ECS and start to installation.👍
After we login to our Windows Server we hop in to Server Managemenet > Tools > Computer Management > Tools > Disk Management and we see our attached disk which is unallocated.
Next, we find the unallocated disk space and right click it to configure it. There will be a setup wizard for easy setup. Configure your disk as you want.🤞
Now we can see our EVS that configured on our windows file explorer.
Let’s create a file in it so we can confirm that EVS can use with different ECS’s and the files inside remain.
For usage of EVS on different ECS’s, you need to detach the EVS before you attach a different ECS. First of all change the state of EVS offline from the ECS that you configure first. After that you can detach the EVS and attach it to a new ECS.
As you can see, we can see the same EVS and files on different ECS.
Elastic Volume Service Demonstration(Linux)🗄
Now make this demo and configurations for a linux server too.
First you created a linux server like we did for windows. After that you created an EVS and attach it to linux server for more disk usage. You remote login to linux server. Here are the commands that you need to type for configuration of EVS on a Linux server.
fdisk -l
fdisk /dev/vdb
n
p
#default
#default
p
w
partprobe
mkfs -t ext4 /dev/vdb1
mkdir /mnt/sdc
mount /dev/vdb1 /mnt/sdc
df -TH
Now we can use our EVS on /mnt/sdc directory.
Object Storage Service Demonstration🗃
Object Storage Service(OBS) usage is so easy that you dont need to configure and install anything. Only thing you need to do is create a bucket for yourself from OBS Console and upload data to it.
Here are the instuctions for creating an OBS Bucket for your Cloud Data Storage.
Find the Object Storage Service from Service List. Click to Create Bucket button at the upper right corner.
Make the configurations you want of your bucket.
Select standart for standart usage. Infrequent access for a few access and Archive for once a year access. Click create now.
Here we are. We created our bucket and we can start to use it. We can upload every type of data we want inside of it.
Scalable File Service Demonstration(Linux)📁
Find Scalable File Service from Service List. Click Create File System on the upper right corner.
Make the configurations for AZ and storage size.
Select the vpc, subnet and security group you want. We need to give this Scalable File System a network ip. SFS access is performing with its own ip address.
After it created we can log in to our linux or windows server to configure it.
For both of it we need NFS to use SFS. So we need to install NFS to our Linux Server. Here are the commands for installing NFS to centOS.
yum -y install nfs-utils yum install bind-utils
After that all we need to do is mount the SFS with its own ip address. The code is below.
cd /mnt/sfs_turbo mount -t nfs -o vers=3,nolock (YOUR SFS IP ADDRESS):/ /mnt/sfs_turbo
Now you can use your SFS with the file path of /mnt/sfs_turbo
Scalable File Service Demonstration(Windows)📂
We need to install NFS for windows too like we used to do in linux.
First we hop in to Server Manager > Dashboard and click to Add Roles and Features.
Find Server for NFS and click to install it.
Click next and find Client for NFS same process.
Click next and wait for installation.
After installation is complete restart the server.
When server is online again, open command line on windows and type the code below to mount it to your SFS.
mount -o nolock -o casesensitive=yes (YOUR SFS IP ADDRESS):/! X:
Now you can use your SFS as a real time shared and scalable file server from file explorer.
Final thoughts🏁
As seen in the demo, each huawei cloud storage service has its own advantages and disadvantages. You can easily use the services you see suitable for your request thanks to this article. Below is a comparison of these three storage services.
