Overview

Enterprises today demand storage that is not only scalable and high-performing, but also resilient to outages. IBM Cloud has long supported these needs with Zonal File Storage, and now we’re taking it a step further by introducing Regional File Storage — designed for High Availability (HA) across an entire Multi Zone Region (MZR).

What is Regional File Storage?

Regional File Storage (RFS) is a multi-zone service that complements the single-zone flavor of File Storage for VPC which has been available for a few years now. With the advent of this new storage service, File Storage for VPC turns a new page in its journey by offering regional resiliency with multi-zone HA, ZERO RPO synchronous replication across zones and multi-zone access from any compute instance within an MZR. With RFS, enterprises with stringent availability requirements can ensure business continuity even in the event of a zonal disruption.

Key Benefits of Regional File Storage

• High Availability – Built on redundant infrastructure with automatic failover for business-critical workloads, ensuring availability to withstand zonal disruptions.

• Resilience for Critical Applications – ZERO RPO synchronous replication across zones within an MZR ensures data durability across the region.

• Flexible Performance – Choose your bandwidth to achieve performance needs and match workload demands up to 1 GBps per share.

• Scalability – Grow seamlessly with support for file shares up to 32 TB per share, with the ability to adjust capacity and performance dynamically.

• Secure by Design – Data is encrypted both at-rest and in-transit, with integration into IBM Cloud’s security ecosystem.

• Simplified Management – Manage file shares easily via IBM Cloud Console, CLI, or API.

Use Cases

• Enterprise Applications – Run business-critical applications with confidence, backed by regional resiliency and HA.

• AI & Analytics – Store and process large datasets with low latency and high throughput.

• Web Services and Content Management - Share common data spread across multiple zones to deliver web services.

• Containerized Workloads – Ensure High Availability for Kubernetes and OpenShift clusters that rely on persistent storage.

• Disaster Recovery – Mitigate risks from zonal failures and ensure faster RTOs.

Regional vs. Zonal File Storage: Decision Factors

• Availability: Need a multi-zone service - Regional; Need a single-zone service - Zonal;

• Resilience: Need 0 RPO - Regional; Is 15min RPO sufficient - Zonal;

• Replication: Need sync-replication across the MZR - Regional; Does async-replication suffice - Zonal;

• Use-case: Need non-disruptive HA service for business continuity - Regional; Need cost-effective low latency service - Zonal;

Why IBM Cloud Regional File Storage?

With Regional File Storage, IBM Cloud customers gain peace of mind knowing their applications and data are safeguarded with enterprise-grade durability and resilience. Whether you are running mission-critical databases, analytics platforms, or containerized environments, regional redundancy ensures your workloads remain available and performant.

Regional File Storage is released in Select Availability mode for now, available in most MZRs but will require special access. Do reach out to the contacts below or your IBM representative to gain access to RFS.

Kickstart your File Storage for VPC journey today with promo code VPC1000! Get in touch to learn more and check out our File Storage product page or IBM Cloud docs. 

Authors: 

Arkapravo Chakraborty | GTM Product Management at IBM Cloud

Arun Viswanathan | IaaS Product Management at IBM Cloud