January 04, 2023

Publish Items to the OCVS Content Library Using OCI Object Storage Service

This was a short and crisp blog post to demonstrate how native OCI Cloud services simplify different aspects of VMware operations. OCI Object Storage Service greatly simplifies content distribution across the OCVS VMware SDDC stack and other environments.

Oracle Cloud VMware Solution (OCVS) allows you to deploy VMware SDDC stack in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). With this, you can easily transpose VMware estate into the public cloud infrastructure and share close proximity with the native public cloud services. In the past, I have shared how easily you can extend VMware SDDC storage resources using native public cloud services such as OCI File Storage Service and OCI Block Volume service. The advantage of using native OCI services is that they reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and operational overhead required to manage a multi-cloud environment.

I was recently working on deploying a 3rd party solution in the OCVS environment, which required me to download and upload ISOs, templates, and other binaries in the OCVS environment. I am sure there are plenty of ways to do this particular task, which is a no-brainer. However, I had a few constraints in my environment that led me to explore OCI Object Storage Service. In this blog post, I will share how to use OCI Object Storage Service to distribute the data and eventually upload the content library items using OCI Object Storage Service.

What is OCI Object Storage Service?

OCI Object Storage Service is a native Oracle Cloud Service that offers a reliable, high-performance storage platform to store and retrieve the contents over the internet or within the cloud infrastructure. The service allows you to store unstructured data of any content type, including analytic data and rich content, like images and videos.

You can consume the OCI Object Storage Service by creating storage buckets to store the data objects.

Bucket

Buckets are logical storage containers for storing objects. Users or Systems can create a bucket within a region.

Object

Any data, regardless of content type, is stored as an object. An object is composed of the object itself and metadata about the object. Each object is stored in a bucket.

How to create OCI Storage Bucket?

The process of creating an OCI storage bucket is pretty simple.

  1. Log in to Oracle Cloud Console.
  2. Select the appropriate region.
  3. Go to Storage Section and Select Object Storage & Archive Storage.

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  1. Click on Create Bucket.

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  1. Provide the following details.
    1. Bucket Name
    2. Storage Tier, Select Standard if you actively use the contents.
    3. Enable auto-tiering.
    4. Specify Tags (Optional)
    5. Click on Create.

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After completing this job, you will have a new storage bucket created.

Pro-Tip: It is recommended to keep the bucket visibility Private. Enabling public visibility will let anonymous and unauthenticated users access data stored in the bucket.

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How to upload data into OCI Storge Bucket?

  1. Select the Storage Bucket.
  2. Go to Objects Under the resource menu.
  3. Click on Upload.

  1. Provide the following details.
    1. Object Name Prefix
    2. Storage Tier
    3. Browse and upload the files.

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How to access objects from OCI Storage Bucket?

To access objects from the OCI storage bucket, you must create a pre-authenticated request. You will receive an HTTPS URL upon the successful creation of pre-authenticated requests.

  1. Select the Storage Bucket.
  2. Go to Object under the resource menu.
  3. Click on three vertical dots.

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  1. Click on Create Pre-Authenticated Request.

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  1. Provide the following details.
    1. Name
    2. Pre-Authenticated Request Target
    3. Select Object.
    4. Provide access type.
    5. Set the expiration date.
    6. Click on Create Pre-Authenticated Request.

 

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  1. Copy the Pre-Authenticated Request URL. Please note that you will not find the pre-authentication URL once you close the request details window. If you have not copied the URL, you can delete the existing request and create a new one.

 

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The Pre-Authenticated Request URL is an HTTPS URL and can be used with any system with internet access. You can use this URL to download and access the objects.

Once we have OCI Bucket and uploaded the Objects, we can create the pre-authenticated requests against any object and use the URL to upload the items to the content library.

 

Summary

This was a short and crisp blog post to demonstrate how native OCI Cloud services simplify different aspects of VMware operations. OCI Object Storage Service greatly simplifies content distribution across the OCVS VMware SDDC stack and other environments.

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