Cloud Storage Integration

Everyone who has ever dealt with web applications and sites knows what a headache presents with working with files: downloading, storing, returning to users.

Website creators, for example, often have to deal with problems such as lack of disk space for storing large amounts of static content, securing storage and restricting access, backing up and restoring data.
Original on Selectel's corporate blog

Website visitors, in turn, experience serious inconvenience due to the too long loading of pages containing "heavy" elements (graphics, animation, video, etc.). Many browsers have a limit on the number of simultaneous connections (for example, Internet Explorer allows only three simultaneous requests to a domain). If a web page contains many images, all of these images will load sequentially for a very long time. Practice shows: if the page loading takes more than 4 seconds, the user leaves this page. For web projects, this means a loss of audience, and in many cases also lost profits.

To solve the problems described, CMS developers are increasingly taking such a step as integrating their own products with cloud storage. The advantages of this solution are obvious:

• storing large amounts of data in the "clouds" is cheaper than traditional storage;
• the use of "clouds" allows you to effectively solve the problem of data availability: malfunctions in the operation of cloud services occur much less often than the fall of traditional servers;
• when changing the hosting provider there is no need to transfer a large number of files manually;
• Thanks to the use of Content Delivery Networks (CDN), the speed of file delivery to users is significantly increased;
• since users do not download files from the site, but via CDN, the load on the servers is reduced;
• cloud service providers guarantee the safety of customer data: for example, in our storage all downloaded data is simultaneously copied to several independent servers, and the missing data is restored automatically.

The integration of cloud storage with site management systems is one of the current trends today. Customers highly appreciate the advantages of our service: for example, one of them even wrote his own plugin for connecting Selectel storage to LiveStreet CMS.

The number of CMS that can integrate with our storage is constantly growing. Now users of CMS 1C-Bitrix and Uploadcare service can upload their own files to Selectel storage.

Connection to 1C-Bitrix

The 1C-Bitrix company has been working for a long time to integrate its product with cloud storage. Starting with version 11 , which was released two years ago, CMS 1C-Bitrix has the ability to connect cloud services to store static content. Latest versions of the product also support our repository.

To connect Selectel cloud storage to CMS 1C-Bitrix, those who are not yet our client, you must first register on the site http://selectel.ru and get a username and password. Then we select the item “Settings” → “Cloud storage” in the main menu of the 1C-Bitrix administration panel. A list of supported services will appear on the screen:



Now click on the “Add” button located above the list. A window for configuring the connection and use of cloud storage opens. In the drop-down list of providers, select Selectel:



After that, the settings window will look like this:



In the "Server name (API host)" field, enter auth.selcdn.ru, in the "User name (API user)" field, enter the login (contract number), received during registration, in the field “Access Key (API key)” - the password that can be found in the section of the Cloud Storage control panel → “Access Settings”. 1C-Bitrix itself creates a container in the cloud.

Note that such an implementation seems to us not entirely clear and convenient: why can’t you use existing containers for storing files? It may well be assumed, for example, that files previously placed in the “cloud” may be needed when working on a new web project. Meanwhile, when you try to connect already created containers, the system displays an error message.

By default, the newly created container is assigned a name generated by the program, which is a difficult to read combination of letters and numbers. It can be easily replaced with any other: for this, simply edit the contents of the Container field.

Once all the settings are entered, click on the Save button. A container will be created in Selectel cloud storage where files downloaded via CMS 1C-Bitrix will be automatically placed.

Connect to Uploadcare

Uploadcare is a service intended for developers of web applications and sites. It processes and stores in the clouds the media files used in the web project, and also distributes them to users via CDN. The service ensures the integrity and safety of data, including through backup to cloud storage. Recently, Uploadcare also supports Selectel cloud storage. This innovation should be of interest primarily to Russian users: with a high level of reliability and functionality, data storage at our site is much cheaper compared to similar foreign services.

To store Uploadcare backups, you need to create a separate container in Selectel cloud storage:



Then you need to create an additional user who will have access only to the Backupcare backup container:





After that, go to Uploadcare under your account and open the main menu:



Select Backup:



Uploadcare will offer to choose one of two cloud storages (Amazon S3 and Selectel) to place backups. We select, of course, Selectel:



In the form that opens, enter the username (the same one that was created to work with Uploadcare data), the password, and also the name of the container in which the backups will be stored. After that, click on the Connect button:



A message about the successful connection of Selectel cloud storage will appear on the screen:

What's next?

As mentioned above, the integration of CMS with cloud services is a very, very promising trend. Our cloud storage, in principle, can be connected to any CMS that supports the Openstack Swift or Amazon S3 protocol. In this regard, we would like to appeal to our readers, many of whom are already our customers, with the question: what kind of CMS would you like to integrate with our cloud storage?

Those who are not yet our client, we invite you to test our cloud service. To just get acquainted with the capabilities of our cloud storage, you do not need to pay anything: each newly registered user receives 10 rubles into the account. For full testing, this amount is more than enough.