This topic describes the basic terms in Apsara File Storage NAS.
Architecture of NAS
NAS is a distributed file sharing solution that provides high scalability, reliability, and performance. NAS allows you to migrate business data from on-premises storage solutions to Alibaba Cloud without the need to modify your application code. Each NAS file system can be mounted on thousands of compute nodes, such as Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) clusters.
Terms in Alibaba Cloud
Term | Description | Usage notes |
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UID | The ID of the Alibaba Cloud account. The account ID is a string of numbers. You can view the account ID on the Account Management page of the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. | In most cases, you must mount a NAS file system on a compute node of the same Alibaba Cloud account. A cross-account mount is complex. For more information, see Enable a cross-account mount for a file system. |
region | A geographic area where a data center resides. Example: China (Hangzhou) and Germany (Frankfurt). |
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zone | Isolated locations in a region where the power supply and network are independent. Example: Hangzhou Zone B and Frankfurt Zone A. |
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VPC | A logically isolated network. You can connect two virtual private clouds (VPCs) by using Cloud Enterprise Network (CEN). | A network environment is a prerequisite for compute nodes to access NAS file systems. We recommend that you use a VPC rather than the classic network for better user experience. |
Terms in NAS
Term | Description | Usage notes |
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file system | A place where files are stored. A file system can be mounted on a compute node by using a mount target. The data and metadata in the file system are stored in the traditional directory tree structure. A file system supports simultaneous access from hundreds of compute nodes for data sharing and highly concurrent read and write operations. | NAS file systems are more applicable to applications than network disks. RESTful APIs are not supported. |
storage plan | A billing method for General-purpose NAS file systems. This billing method allows you to plan your NAS resources and enjoy discounts. |
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mount | Mount is the process to connect a compute node to a NAS file system. After a NAS file system is mounted on a compute node, the compute node can access data in the file system. | You can mount a NAS file system on an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance by using the CLI. You can also mount a NAS file system on a container cluster (for example, a Kubernetes cluster) by using the console or configuration file. |
mount target | A connection point of a NAS file system in the classic network or a VPC. Each mount target is displayed as a domain name. |
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permission group | A group that is used to configure the access permissions of a mount target. You can add rules to a permission group to specify the IP addresses and the corresponding read and write permissions on the file system. |
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NAS Capacity | A type of General-purpose NAS file systems. NAS Capacity file systems are applicable to scenarios that require high cost efficiency and large capacity. | NAS Capacity file systems support the auto scaling feature. The capacity of a NAS Capacity file system can be a maximum of 10 PiB. |
NAS Performance | A type of General-purpose NAS file systems. NAS Performance file systems are applicable to scenarios that require high concurrency and high throughput. | NAS Performance file systems support the auto scaling feature. The capacity of a NAS Performance file system can be a maximum of 1 PiB. |
NFS protocol | A software protocol that is used to mount a NAS file system on a compute node. The NFS protocol is applicable to Linux clients and most containers. |
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SMB protocol | A software protocol that is used to mount a NAS file system on a compute node. The SMB protocol is applicable to Windows clients and Windows containers. | None. |
POSIX-based APIs | A set of standard interfaces that are used to access files in a Linux operating system. You can call the POSIX-based APIs by using a programming language in applications to manage files. | Linux applications also use POSIX interfaces to manage on-premises files. Therefore, if you migrate on-premises files to NAS file system, you can access the files without the need to modify the application code. To achieve optimal performance of NAS file systems, we recommend that you increase the concurrency of your applications and increase the block size for read and write operations. |