The Object Storage Service now supports the functionality "Requester-pays-Bucket". If this functionality is activated, the costs for accessing a bucket or the objects in the bucket are charged to the person accessing the bucket. The costs for data storage remain with the owner of the bucket.

This allows you, for example, to build a data lake where you can share your data with other companies or institutions. If these companies or institutions access this data, then the costs for data access are charged to these companies/institutions. If you e.g. are organised in a consortium you can now distribute the costs to individual participants. This might be useful for research institutions in the health sector or in the scientific environment.

If you activate this functionality, it is no longer possible to access the bucket "anonymously". Access must be from an account that is registered in the OTC. The account can be within your own OTC tenant or an account of a foreign tenant, if corresponding permissions are granted. However, this also means that an accessing external company or institution require to have an own OTC tenant in order to access this content.

How does the billing logic work?

All costs for access are allocated to the accessing party and invoiced. This includes the OBS outbound traffic as well as necessary request costs, for example for listing objects or accessing objects. Potential restore costs are also charged to the accessing party. Enclosed you will find a simplified view that gives you an overview of the billing logic. Please note that not all request types are listed for reasons of simplicity.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask them in the corresponding community blog. You can also find more information in the OTC documentation.