Cloud storage means different things to different people depending on how it’s implemented. The most common implementation is a ‘public cloud’, which is essentially storage capacity accessed through the internet or a wide area network (WAN) connection, and purchased on an as-needed basis. Users can expand capacity almost without limit, by contacting the provider, which typically operates a highly scalable storage infrastructure, sometimes in physically dispersed locations.
This expansion ability drives a common expectation that cloud providers have massive storage infrastructures. As a result most cloud storage hardware and software systems developers have also focused on scalability and ease of management. A grid architecture is common, with storage being made up of clusters of individual servers or nodes that are coupled together to present a single storage area or single management point.
The interface to the cloud storage is what the storage manager or the user will see. This is typically some sort of appliance or software application that runs locally and then sends data to the cloud. It can be as simple as presenting a file interface to the cloud storage area, meaning that it looks like a network mounted drive or it could be integrated into a backup or archive application.
Cloud storage is a new distribution model, however, with the potential for economies of scale. Aside from cost, its benefits are outsourced operation, simple, unlimited growth and ‘enterprise’ features for smaller users – like high availability, security, data protection, etc .
Finally, there is a lot of discussion about the second implementation, internal or ‘private clouds’. This essentially is taking the capabilities of a public storage cloud, like scalability and cost effectiveness, and bringing them to the large data center. The use case could be to create a cloud storage-like service for the organization that can be accessed from anywhere or it could be as simple as leveraging a cloud storage solution to build a highly scalable, easy-to-use NAS.
With the infrastructure in place the next logical question is “what are the best uses for this storage platform – archive, backup, collaboration?”
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