Grid Storage
Access to Grid Storage provided by the EGI HTC providers
Online Storage
Store, share and access your files and their metadata on a global scale
The EGI Online Storage includes a wide category of services which allows storing, sharing and accessing files on the EGI infrastructure. The service comprises different categories of storage services depending on the technology and usage that is foreseen. The 3 following service offerings are available:
- Grid Storage
- Object Storage
- Block Storage, which is described under the Cloud Compute section
A summary of the main differences between Grid, Block and Object Storage is reported in the following table.
| Access | Sharing | Accounting | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grid Storage | from any device connected to the internet | Available for the data stored | Grid protocols and HTTP/Webdav requests |
| Block Storage | only from within a VM only at the same site the VM is located | Not possible for the entire block | POSIX access, use as local disk |
| Object Storage | from any device connected to the internet | Possible only for the data stored | via HTTP requests to server |
Grid Storage is mainly serving data access and storage for EGI High Throughput Compute scenarios. For EGI Federated Cloud use cases it depends on the application needs either Block or Object storage could be use. In general, block storage is a good and simple solution for temporary data and data which you do not need to share beside the single application running on a single VM. If you need to have your data exposed within portals or shared between different steps of your processing workflow, it is usually best to use the object storage.
Last modified January 11, 2021: Fix linter issues (#172) (2219631)