This topic lists the common features of OSS.
Before you start to use OSS, we recommend that you have a good understanding of basic terms used in OSS, such as bucket, object, region, and endpoint. For more information about the basic terms used in OSS, see Terms.
The following table lists the features provided by OSS.
| Scenario | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Upload objects | Before uploading objects to OSS, you must create a bucket in an Alibaba Cloud region to store your objects. After you create a bucket, you can upload objects to the bucket. | |
| Search for objects | You can search for objects or folders in a bucket. | Search for objects |
| View or download objects | You can use the URL of an object to view or download the object. | Obtain object URLs |
| Delete objects or folders | You can delete objects or folders on OSS. You can also delete parts generated in multipart uploads to save storage space. | |
| Configure versioning | When versioning is enabled for a bucket, data that is overwritten or deleted in the bucket is saved as a previous version. Versioning allows you to restore objects in a bucket to any previous point in time, and protects your data from being accidentally overwritten or deleted. | Overview |
| Control access to OSS resources | You can control access to OSS resources by using the following methods:
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| Bucket tagging | OSS allows you to configure bucket tagging to classify and manage buckets. For example, you can configure this feature to list only buckets that have specific tags. | Configure bucket tagging |
| Object tagging | OSS allows you to configure object tagging to classify objects. You can configure lifecycle rules and ACLs for objects based on tags. | Configure object tagging |
| Transfer acceleration | OSS uses data centers distributed around the globe to implement transfer acceleration. When a data transfer request is sent, it is resolved and routed over an optimal network path and protocol to the data center where your bucket resides. Transfer acceleration improves customer experience and reduces the time needed for business to deliver services to their customers. | Transfer acceleration |
| Record the access information for OSS resources | You can enable logging to record the detailed access information for OSS resources. | Access logging |
| Prevent data on OSS from being hotlinked | You can configure hotlink protection for a bucket, such as configuring a Referer whitelist and whether to allow access requests with an empty Referer field. | Configure hotlink protection |
| Access OSS resources through custom domain names | You can bind a custom domain name to an OSS bucket and then use the custom domain name to access data in the bucket. You can also activate Alibaba Cloud CDN to accelerate access to the data in your bucket. If you want to use your domain name to access OSS through HTTPS, you can host your SSL certificate through OSS. | |
| Access a bucket as static web pages | You can configure static website hosting for your bucket and access this static website through the bucket endpoint. | Static website hosting |
| Configure CORS | OSS provides Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) in HTML5. CORS allows client web applications that are loaded in one domain to interact with resources in another domain. | Set CORS rules |
| Automatically delete multiple objects at a specified point in time | You can specify and manage the lifecycle of specific objects or all objects in a bucket. For example, you can delete a specific object or convert it to a cheaper storage class after a period of time. | Manage object lifecycle |
| Replicate data from one bucket to another across regions | Cross-region replication enables automatic and asynchronous replication of objects across buckets in different OSS regions. It synchronizes operations such as the create, overwriting, and delete operations on objects from the source bucket to the destination bucket. | Cross-region replication |
| Obtain content from the origin | You can configure back-to-origin rules to specify whether to obtain source data through mirroring or redirection. You can configure back-to-origin rules for online data migration and specific request redirection. | Manage back-to-origin configurations |
| Encrypt uploaded data | You can use server-side encryption to encrypt and store your data in OSS. | Server-side encryption |
| Create data retention policies | You can create a retention policy to set the data retention period. Your data cannot be deleted by any users within this period. | Retention policy |
| Zone-disaster recovery | OSS uses the multi-zone mechanism to distribute user data across three zones within the same region. Even if one zone becomes unavailable, the data can still be accessible. This feature can provide data durability (designed for) of 99.9999999999% (twelve 9's) and service availability (designed for) of 99.995%. | Zone-redundant storage |
| Modify HTTP headers | OSS allows you to configure HTTP headers to customize HTTP request policies such as the cache policy and forced file download policy. | Set an HTTP header |
| View resource usage | You can view real-time information about OSS service usage, such as the status and performance of the basic system operation. | Monitoring service overview |
| Process images stored in OSS | You can perform operations such as format conversion, cropping, scaling, rotating, watermarking, and style encapsulation on images stored in OSS. | Image processing |
| Use tools to manage OSS resources | OSS provides graphical, CLI, file mounting, and FTP tools for you to manage OSS resources. | OSS tools |
| Single-connection bandwidth throttling | OSS allows you to configure bandwidth throttling for upload, download, and copy operations in OSS to ensure sufficient bandwidth for other applications. | Single-connection bandwidth throttling |
| Use API operations and SDKs to manage OSS resources | OSS provides RESTful API operations and SDKs in multiple programming languages to facilitate secondary development. |