IBM Cloud Object Storage connection

Last updated: Dec 09, 2024

To access your data in IBM Cloud Object Storage (COS), create a connection asset for it.

IBM Cloud Object Storage on IBM Cloud provides unstructured data storage for cloud applications. Cloud Object Storage offers S3 API and application binding with regional and cross-regional resiliency.

Create a connection to IBM Cloud Object Storage

To create the connection asset, you need these connection details:

Bucket name. (Optional. If you do not enter the bucket name, then the credentials must have permission to list all the buckets.)
Login URL. To find the Login URL:

Go to the Cloud Object Storage Resource list at https://cloud.ibm.com/resources.
Expand the Storage resource.
Click the Cloud Object Storage service. From the menu, select Endpoints.
Optional: Use the Select resiliency and Select location menus to filter the choices.
Copy the value of the public endpoint that is in the same region as the bucket that you want to use.

SSL certificate: (Optional). A self-signed certificate that was created by a tool such as OpenSSL.

Credentials

Use one of the following combination of values for authentication:

Service credentials The Service credentials must be created with the HMAC option selected.
Resource instance ID, API key, Access key, and Secret key (In this combination, the Resource instance ID and API key are used for authentication. The Access key and Secret key are stored.)
Access key and Secret key

To find the value for Service credentials:

Go to the Cloud Object Storage Resource list at https://cloud.ibm.com/resources.
Expand the Storage resource.
Click the Cloud Object Storage service, and then click the Service credentials tab.
Expand the Key name that you want to use.
Copy the entire JSON file. Include the opening and closing braces { } symbols.

To find the values for the API key, Access key, Secret key, and the Resource instance ID:

Go to the Cloud Object Storage Resource list at https://cloud.ibm.com/resources.
Expand the Storage resource.
Click the Cloud Object Storage service, and then click the Service credentials tab.
Expand the Key name that you want to use. Copy the values without the quotation marks:

API key: apikey
Access key: access_key_id
Secret key: secret_access_key
Resource instance ID: resource_instance_id

IBM Cloud Object Storage setup

Getting started with IBM Cloud Object Storage

Restrictions

The following restrictions apply:

You must create the Cloud Object Storage credentials with the Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) option. See Using HMAC credentials.
You can only add files to a data product. You cannot add directories. Filenames must have an extension, for example, filename.csv.

Supported file types

The IBM Cloud Object Storage connection supports these file types: Avro, CSV, Delimited text, Excel, JSON, ORC, Parquet, SAS, SAV, SHP, and XML.

Table formats

The IBM Cloud Object Storage connection supports these Data Lake table formats: Delta Lake and Iceberg.

Parent topic: Supported connections