Object storage is a type of data storage that manages data as objects. Unlike file systems that have a file hierarchy, in object storages each piece of data is designated as an object, kept in a distinct repository, and packaged with metadata and a special identifier for quick access and retrieval.

This architecture is used to store vast amounts of unstructured data, and is designed to store images, documents, or video files, write log files, and even store data backup taken from other data storage technologies such as self-managed databases.

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What are some common cloud object storages?

Every cloud provider has a cloud object storage offering, and some common examples are Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage.

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Blobs, buckets and containers

For logical separation between different use-cases, cloud object storage offers a level of hierarchy  that allows data security teams to manage these groups of objects differently, for example, when wanting to provide various levels of access.

These hierarchies differ in each cloud provider:

• Azure Blob Storage: A container organizes a set of blobs, similar to a directory in a file system. A storage account can include an unlimited number of containers, and a container can store an unlimited number of blobs.
• Google Cloud Storage: Buckets are the basic containers that hold data. Everything that is stored in Cloud Storage must be contained in a bucket. Buckets can be used  to organize data and control access to that data, but unlike directories and folders, these buckets cannot be nested. 
• Amazon S3: Every object is contained in a bucket in Amazon S3. Any number of objects can be stored in a bucket and, by default, there can be up to 100 buckets in one account. 

Data lakes and data warehouses

In some cases, the underlying infrastructure for a data warehouse is an object storage, and even services such as Snowflake or Atlas will rely on this technology to provide their capabilities.

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