Referring to <https://docs.prefect.io/concepts/dep...
# ask-communityv
Venkat Ramakrishnan
09/02/2022, 4:27 AMReferring to https://docs.prefect.io/concepts/deployments/, and the description for blocks is not clear. There seems to be two types of blocks 'storage block' and 'infrastructure block', but I am not sure. The documentation is referring to 'block', but it is not clear about :
1. What is a storage block and what is it used for?
2. What is infrastructure block and what it is used for ?
3. When blocktype/blockname is specified, 'blockname' is referred to as 'local-file-system' while creating the block. But where is the block created? It is not shown in the document.
4. Is remote storage a substitute for -sb or mutually exclusive?
Totally confused. If someone can explain in detail, it would be helpful. Docs are not helping.
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Taylor Curran
09/02/2022, 1:19 PMHi Venkat good questions for 1 and 2:
Taylor Curran
09/02/2022, 1:19 PMStorage blocks attached to a deployment are used for flow code storage. The agent retrieves the flow code from whichever remote/local storage is configured in the deployment’s storage block.
Infrastructure blocks attached to a deployment are propagated to the agent for flow runs created for that deployment. The infrastructure block is deserialized by the agent and it has two jobs:
• Create execution environment infrastructure for the flow run.
• Run a Python command to start the
prefect.engine--infra--infra-block🙌 1
Taylor Curran
09/02/2022, 1:21 PM3. Blocks are either defined and saved by running python, an example can be found in these docs. OR you can hop into the UI, go to the blocks tab and + add blocks there.
Taylor Curran
09/02/2022, 1:22 PM4. A storage block (-sb) is a way to define remote storage for prefect.
Taylor Curran
09/02/2022, 1:22 PMHope that helps 🙂
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Venkat Ramakrishnan
09/04/2022, 10:15 AMThank you so much for the reply. One traceback that I am facing could potentially be because of a missing storage or an infrastructure block. When you say:
"Storage blocks attached to a deployment are used for flow code storage. The agent retrieves the flow code from whichever remote/local storage is configured in the deployment’s storage block."
1. if I don't specify storage block in my deployment configuration in python, where will the storage happen? Is there a default directory created by Prefect in the current working directory in which prefect will store its files?
2. Same question as above for the infrastructure block. Also, I could not really figure out what you said about infrastructure block. Maybe an example would help.
3. When launching 'prefect agent start', I presume that the agent would look for the storage and infrastructure blocks at a default location if not specified. Any behavior of prefect agent that I should take care of specifically?
Thanks much!