This topic describes the main use cases for File Storage NAS.
Migrate enterprise applications to the cloud
File Storage NAS provides standard NFS and SMB interfaces, allowing you to easily migrate on-premises applications built on NAS to Alibaba Cloud. Built on a cloud-native architecture, File Storage NAS delivers 99.95% high availability and petabyte-scale elastic capacity. It also supports enterprise-grade features, such as directory quotas, access control list (ACL), a recycle bin, and data encryption. These features make it an ideal solution for migrating core on-premises enterprise applications to the cloud.
Persistent volume (PV) storage for containers
Containers are ideal for building microservices due to their cross-platform compatibility, agile application deployment, and rapid auto scaling capabilities. Containerizing enterprise production systems improves business agility. For rapid scaling and scheduling, containers must be able to access their original data when rescheduled to ensure quick application startup. As a shared file system, File Storage NAS allows Pods to access their data from any ECS instance. The acceleration client embedded in Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) provides near-local file system performance for small-file operations, which is essential for supporting I/O-sensitive core production applications. In addition, File Storage NAS provides directory quotas to set capacity limits for container persistent volumes (PVs), and the recycle bin feature helps prevent data loss from accidental PV deletion.
High-performance computing
Applications for AI training, genetic sequencing, and industrial simulation depend on complete file semantics and data consistency across multiple compute nodes. File Storage NAS provides the standard file interfaces, multi-client read/write consistency, and high aggregate throughput required for multi-GPU and multi-CPU workloads. When you run these workloads in a container environment, the acceleration client provides near-local file system performance for small-file operations and a distributed cache on the compute side. This significantly improves computation speed at no extra cost.
Content management and web serving
NAS can be used as a scalable, shared file system with multi-host access, making it ideal for content management systems and web service applications that store and serve content for websites, online publishing, and archiving. File Storage NAS provides the same functionality as on-premises NAS but with greater elasticity and a simpler user experience. This allows web developers to quickly migrate enterprise web services to the cloud and take advantage of its scalability and rich ecosystem of services.
Media and entertainment workflows
Media workflows such as video editing, sound design, and rendering often rely on shared file storage for collaboration on large files across multiple workstations. File Storage NAS provides a close-to-open consistency model and high-throughput shared file access. This reduces workflow completion time by eliminating data copying to local disks and consolidating multiple file repositories into a single, accessible location.
AI Agent multi-tenant workspaces
In scenarios such as AI Agent platforms, intelligent assistants, and agent development frameworks, the platform must provide each end user or agent instance with a dedicated, isolated workspace to store files, memory, context, and intermediate artifacts. Traditional approaches, such as one file system per user or a single shared file system, often encounter bottlenecks in tenant scale, isolation strength, or operational cost.
With AgenticFS, a single file system can host up to 500,000 AgenticSpaces. Each AgenticSpace features independent capacity quotas, access isolation, and performance isolation. For more information, see AgenticFS.