Object Storage Service (OSS)

Object Storage Service (OSS) is Alibaba Cloud’s storage foundation, with an S3-compatible interface for images, video, logs, backups and static assets. Its usage structure differs from most other cloud products: there is no flat monthly fee, and the bill comes from storage, requests, egress and retrieval, of which egress is the one teams usually discover last. This page covers four things: how to pick a storage class by data temperature, where to place the bucket, which components actually make up the bill, and how to hold long-run cost down.

Specs & pricing

What OSS is, and when to use it instead of ECS disks

OSS stores and retrieves files over HTTP, organised into buckets and object keys, with no directory tree and no mountable disk semantics. The dividing line against ECS disks is clear: data that compute reads and writes constantly, needing low latency and block-level semantics belongs on a cloud disk; data written once and read a few times, or kept for the long haul, belongs in OSS. Images, video, logs, database backups, release artifacts and static site assets are all on the OSS side. On the international site buckets are also region-bound, and a bucket’s region cannot be changed after creation.

The four things an OSS bill is made of

• Storage: occupied capacity multiplied by the unit price of the storage class — the four classes differ severalfold
• Requests: every PUT, GET and LIST is charged, so request volume belongs in the calculation for read/write-heavy workloads
• Egress traffic: data leaving OSS to the public internet is charged per GB — the item most often overlooked and most often out of control
• Retrieval: pulling data back from Archive or Cold Archive is charged separately, and Cold Archive carries a minimum storage duration, so early deletion can still bill the minimum term
• Origin pull and CDN: origin-pull traffic and CDN-delivered traffic are billed as separate items, and different combinations differ a lot in cost
• Lifecycle rules: automatic transition and deletion rules can cut long-run cost directly. Current unit prices follow the official live quote

Choosing the bucket region

A bucket’s region is fixed at creation, so this decision has to be right the first time. The order of priority is: satisfy compliance and data residency requirements first, get close to the main consumers second, and only then consider price. Egress is priced relative to where the consumer is, so a bucket far from its users costs more than people expect.

International vs China site: resources, accounts and billing

The product looks similar on both sites, but resources, accounts and prices do not cross over. A bucket created on the China site is invisible in the international console, and international partner discounts apply only to international resources. There is also a point cross-border teams miss: the two sites do not have private-network interconnect to each other, so traffic has to go over the public internet or a dedicated line — for large volumes, factor that into the cost up front.

Pick a combination per scenario, not one class for everything

One cost move that pays off immediately

How to get OSS provisioned and running through us

1. Send the requirement: data types, monthly growth, consumer distribution and any data residency constraint
2. We help complete account provisioning and payment verification on the international site — no personal credit card binding, no personal identity documents
3. Once live, create the bucket yourself in the console. The region is chosen on the principles above and cannot be changed later
4. Set up RAM sub-accounts and scope AccessKey permissions in the console before wiring the bucket into your app — never share the main account key
5. After you confirm the resource list we settle payment on your behalf; adding buckets or changing storage policy later follows the same flow

The six most common OSS mistakes

• Leaving a bucket publicly readable and writable: keep it private and serve through signed URLs or CDN origin pull
• No lifecycle rules: logs pile up on Standard storage and the bill multiplies over three years
• Ignoring egress charges: the more users download, the more you egress — often more than the storage fee itself
• Serving static assets without a CDN: everything hits OSS directly and you pay twice, in bandwidth and in requests
• Choosing the wrong bucket region: you can only create a new bucket and migrate, re-uploading every object and paying in both time and money
• Making every object public read: the bucket quietly accumulates logs and exported files that were never meant to be public