Why it matters
Object storage is the base layer for data lakes and content delivery. GCS competes with S3 on price and features while integrating tightly with BigQuery and other GCP services.
The architecture
Objects live in buckets. Buckets have a location: regional (single region), dual-region, or multi-region (US, EU, ASIA). Multi-region buckets replicate across regions for geo-redundancy.
Storage classes: Standard (frequent), Nearline (monthly access), Coldline (quarterly), Archive (yearly). Each class has different price and access latency.
How it works end to end
Lifecycle policies transition objects between classes based on age or other rules. A policy might say: transition to Nearline after 30 days, Coldline after 90, delete after 365.
Uniform bucket-level access simplifies permissions: no per-object ACLs, only IAM. Recommended for new buckets.
Signed URLs enable time-limited authenticated access without credentials.