Introduction
In a new #VeryTechTalk session on Twitch, Rémy (Tech Evangelist), was joined by Antonin (Product Manager) and Édouard (IT Team Leader) to unpack OVHcloud’s Object Storage solution.
They chatted about the service’s early days, how it was redesigned to work with S3, its resilience features, and upcoming additions. This blog post rounds up the key points from the chat to give you a fresh take on this technology, and maybe even make you curious enough to try it for yourself.
How the project started
In 2014, OVHcloud launched HubiC, a consumer service based on File Storage (NAS) and accessible via WebDAV. The model was fine with small amounts of data, but when the terabytes started pouring in, the team realised it couldn’t scale enough to keep up.
The solution was then moved to OpenStack Swift, one of OpenStack’s core building blocks. As a result, customers got an Object Storage service that could manage objects at cloud scale.
In 2020, OVHcloud acquired OpenIO, a startup known for its expertise in S3-compatible storage, which set the project in motion.
We kept OpenStack Swift for legacy uses, but launched an S3-compatible service for modern needs like tools, CI/CD, and AI. About a year and a half after the acquisition, the first S3-compatible class launched, followed by others (infrequent-access and hyper-performance), forming a Multiclass Portfolio.
“We need to build this API quickly as S3 tools are now the go-to standard” – Antonin
We wanted to make Object Storage a multi-purpose service, covering everything from classic backups and machine learning workloads to legal archives.
Today, the service acts as the anchor point for many in-house solutions: instance images, Logs Data Platform, log storage, etc.
Architecture and scalability: virtually limitless
The team manages hundreds of thousands of disks, spread across OVHcloud datacentres, which allow for near-limitless scalability. A big plus, and one of OVHcloud’s goals, is that users don’t notice when a disk is added or swapped out – meaning no downtime.
“Scaling should be as transparent as possible. When adding a disc, users shouldn’t notice any drop in performance.” – Édouard
Even so, this near-limitless volume should be kept in check, enhanced and able to handle some failures while still delivering service.
Rather than simply copying the data, the service splits each object into chunks and adds parity chunks (erasure coding). In the case of 3-AZ storage deployments, if a disk, rack, or an entire datacentre fails, we can use the remaining bits to put the original file back together without losing anything. And this is where Object Storage really shines.
As part of the service, OVHcloud ensures durability (data remains intact) and data availability (uninterrupted access). Customers have the option to choose the level of resilience they need: number of copies, asynchronous replication, versioning, and object-lock features.
This granularity helps customers adjust costs depending on how critical their data is.
- Durability: data remains intact thanks to erasure coding and multi-site replication.
- Availability: access to objects is guaranteed even when an Availability Zone (AZ) goes down.
Performance indicators and key metrics
A variety of metrics can be analysed within an infrastructure of this scale. But a few of them are getting more attention from operations teams. Édouard goes over three of them, which are also worth keeping an eye on if you run your own storage infrastructure and setup.
Error rate: an early warning sign
Error rate (500/503) is the first indicator of the solution’s health.
SDKs are set up to retry automatically when there’s a spike, without the user even noticing. These repeated attempts are made on the customer’s end to ensure a successful read (or write).
Time-to-First-Byte (TTFB): the best gauge of latency
TTFB measures the time it takes to deliver the first byte, no matter the file size.
A slower TTFB usually means the infrastructure is overloaded or something isn’t working as it should. The team monitors this KPI in real time so they can get ahead of issues. It’s a reliable internal indicator of the platform’s performance and overall health.
IOPS vs disk capacity
Even though disk sizes have expanded in recent years, their IOPS haven’t really changed.
A larger capacity lowers IOPS per TB, which is why tracking these metrics is necessary to spot potential slowdowns.
Real-world use cases
Use case 1: Backup and archiving
Customers can back up directly to a bucket, use versioning and object lock, and restore data with just a few clicks. Tape archiving, available since 2025, cost about €1–2 per TB with a TTFB of roughly an hour, ideal for long-term, compliant storage needs.
- Versioning: saves a new version for every edit, so nothing is deleted by accident.
- Object Lock (immutability): write once, read many to help protect against ransomware.
Use case 2: Big data and AI
Huge amounts of data for training machine learning models are kept in cold storage on Object Storage and then moved to compute clusters when needed.
Use case 3: OVHcloud internal services
Object storage is becoming more accessible to a wider range of users. It makes sense for OVHcloud products to make the most of what this technology has to offer.
In fact, it supports many services including instance images, Logs Data Platform logs, and cold data storage.
Roadmap and upcoming innovations
Object Storage 2.0
A redesigned backend (codename Object Storage 2.0) is currently in private beta. The goal is to get rid of soft limits, achieve the lowest possible TTFB, and deliver top performance for customer applications with thousands of small files.
Transparency via the published roadmap
All updates are shared on the OVHcloud GitHub. Users can track tickets, leave comments, and sign up for beta versions in our Discord server.
To sum up…
OVHcloud Object Storage has come a long way and is now a multi-class platform, capable of managing hundreds of thousands of disks while providing robust resiliency. OpenIO’s integration now includes an S3-compatible API to keep up with market demand for interoperability. And with erasure coding, versioning, object-lock, and replication options, customers can adjust data durability and availability according to their budget.
Got a cloud-native project or need large-scale backup? Try OVHcloud Object Storage now. Take a look at the different resilience strategies and tell us what you think — your experience can help the tech community grow.
Was this article helpful? You can watch the full video this excerpt is taken from on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmS0YhjuYZc
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