Question & Answer
Question
Which S3 storage devices are supported by Content Platform Engine?
Answer
Content Platform Engine provides an S3 connector to storage devices that comply with the AWS S3 standard - https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/Welcome.html. Use the Content Platform Engine administration tool (ACCE) to configure the storage device as a generic S3 Advanced Storage Area device. IBM has qualified certain S3-based storage devices (including IBM Cloud Object Storage (ICOS), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Dell Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)) with Content Platform Engine. Other S3-based storage devices are likely to work with this interface if they comply with the AWS S3 standard. The following technote provides additional information on the supported S3 devices, as well as on other storage solutions for use with the Content Platform Engine: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6592835
Customers planning to use an S3 storage device that is not listed in the technote, before using the device in production, must thoroughly test the device in a nonproduction environment. Ensure that the following tasks are covered in the testing: content ingestion, content retrieval, content deletion, and device performance.
To use an S3 compatible solution as a fixed content storage area, the storage solution must also be fully compatible with AWS S3 object lock specifications.
As with all Content Platform Engine supported S3-based storage devices, the customer is responsible for configuring the S3 bucket and its related attributes outside of Content Platform Engine. Contact the storage vendor for any issues related to configuration and set up.
The Content Platform Engine 5.5.x documentation details the information required to configure an S3 storage device in the Content Platform Engine administration (ACCE) tool.
If the customer finds an issue with a S3 storage device that is not listed support storage technote (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6592835), the customer can open a Support case against the S3 connector for Content Platform Engine. IBM will determine whether the issue is related to the Content Platform Engine S3 connector and a fix is feasible, or if the issue is related to the storage vendor's S3 implementation. In the latter situation, the customer must work with the storage vendor to address the issue. IBM Support might request that the customer reproduce the issue using an S3 device identified in the document storage technote: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6592835
Any vendor-specific S3 extensions such as retention, are not supported.
Storage Tiering
Some S3 storage vendors provide storage tiering and allow automatic transition between these tiers by using life-cycle management policies. Content Platform Engine does not have any special handling for content retrieval from different storage tiers. As long as the transition and retrieval from the different storage tiers is transparent to Content Platform Engine, it is supported.
For example, AWS S3 Glacier Storage provides three different storage classes (tiers), Glacier Instant Retrieval, Glacier Flexible Retrieval (formerly S3 Glacier), and Glacier Deep Archive. Content stored in Glacier Instant Retrieval storage can be retrieved immediately similar to other AWS S3 storage classes such as Standard IA storage. However, for Glacier Flexible Retrieval and Glacier Deep Archive storage class, the content is not immediately accessible. To access an object in these storage classes, you must restore a temporary copy of it to the S3 bucket for a specified duration (number of days). The restore process can take from a couple of minutes to several hours or even days. Once the object is restored, it can be retrieved the same way as the object stored in a storage class like Standard IA. Content Platform Engine does not handle any content restore from the archived type storage tier (but once the content is restored, Content Platform Engine can retrieve the content). If Glacier Instant Retrieval is in use, Content Platform Engine can be used with AWS Glacier storage. Glacier Flexible Retrieval and Glacier Deep Archive configurations are not supported.
Related Information
Product Synonym
CPE; Content Engine; FileNet Content Manager
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Document Information
Modified date:
27 September 2023
UID
ibm10744379