Introduction

Important

In this demonstration environment, full access to the IBM Cloud account is NOT provided. IBM Cloud user identifications (IDs) will be restricted to specific capabilities. The IBM Technology Zone utilized in this demonstration guide is shared by all users. Permission to create or modify COS service instances, COS buckets, Key Protect instances, etc. is not provided! Additionally, expiration and retention periods are set in days rather than months or years, which would be more typical in a real-life regulated archive solution. These restrictions are in place to minimize costs, provide an easy-to-use, pre-built environment for this learning activity, and provide an environment for general client demonstrations on very short notice.

Since the Technology Zone environment used in this demonstration guide is shared and pre-built, several activities are simulated through videos and click through (click-thru) demonstrations. These include Parts 2 through 6 and Part 9. It is important to note these activities are most likely ones that would be completed prior to a client demonstration to save time. Parts 7 and 8 are hands-on activities that can be performed in the reserved environment in IBM Technology Zone, where users will perform tasks directly associated with the regulated archive demonstration including uploading data to COS and managing retention of the data including creating legal holds.

IBM Cloud Object Storage (COS) is a highly available, durable, and secure platform for storing unstructured data. Unstructured data (sometimes called binary or "blob" data) refers to data that is not highly structured in the manner of a database. Object storage is the most efficient way to store PDFs, media files, database backups, disk images, or even large structured datasets.

The goal of this demonstration guide is to illustrate how to perform a demonstration of COS that addresses a specific pain point many clients have: management of regulated data. The scenario shown in this guide is based upon a Regulated Archive Demonstration originally created by the COS product management team. Learn more about this scenario here in Seismic in the IBM Regulated Archive entry of The Seller Essentials section. Note, the COS integration with Security Compliance Center is changing and may be going away. Ignore that aspect of the solution described in the above documents. Security Compliance Center is not used in this demonstration guide.

Important

All users of this demonstration guide should have a working knowledge of the IBM COS offering.

The image below is a high level illustration of the regulated archive workflow and the components of the solution: COS, IBM Key Protect, and IBM Cloud Activity Tracker.

Using the above diagram, in this demonstration guide, Step 1 - Classify data sets is not performed. Rather it is assumed clients will best understand their data requirements and based upon those requirements will specify the configurations set in Step 2 - Create regulated data archive.

Step 2 - Create regulated data archive aligns with Parts 1 thru 6 of the demonstration script. In these Parts, videos and click-thru demonstrations are provided that show how all the IBM Cloud components of this demonstration were created and configured. Each of the these parts include an introduction that will describe each component, its function, and the configurations used for the demonstration.

Step 3 through Step 7 in the diagram above aligns with Parts 6, 7, and 8 of the demonstration script. These Parts will use the IBM Cloud Portal and COS command line interfaces (CLIs) to perform activities including:

  • ingesting data into COS
  • specifying object-specific retention durations
  • placing legal holds on data
  • restoring data
  • deleting data from COS to validate retention policies and legal holds are honored

Additionally, IBM Cloud Activity Tracker will be used to perform mock audit activities.

Time to get started. Proceed to Part 2 to watch and practice creating a COS service is created.