In the previous chapter, we looked at managing block storage with Cinder. Block storage attaches directly to the instances, and the operating system on the instance writes to the file system. Object storage is an alternative storage option. Object storage is a simple form of storage that handles file operations on the instances by way of API calls. Swift is the object storage component in OpenStack. In this chapter, we're going to take a deeper look at what object storage is, how to use it, and some options available to use as the backend storage engine.