Analysis: The characteristics of cloud storage and its implementation methods

Although there are some different ways for cloud storage to be implemented by vendors, it is generally accepted that "storage is the service" implementation model. At the same time because SI most close to Enterprise Client, is also most familiar with the specific needs of users and business composition, so Si or will become the enterprise private cloud storage implementation of the protagonist.

Cloud storage as a service

Hewlett-Packard Cao Zhenjiang said: "As early as the late the 1990s, Hewlett-Packard described the concept of computing power and storage utilities as a resource to access." Today's talk of ' cloud computing ' is essentially a further deepening and development of this concept. As far as the ' cloud computing ' itself is concerned, because the emphasis is on the concept of delivering services, the storage-related functionality should also be implemented on how to implement ' storage as a service ' and provide storage services to users. "And HP has delivered an integrated cloud ecosystem to end customers to achieve such a concept."

In this respect, IBM System and Technology Department of Greater China, general manager of the system Storage department Hou also held the same view: "Cloud storage is not a device, but a service." It is to store and access data as a service and provide it to users over the network. Cloud computing is the ability to provide computing, and, correspondingly, cloud storage provides storage capabilities. ”

Hou said, compared with the storage virtualization, or cluster storage, San+nas and so are a technology, there is no inevitable link between the two. But from an architectural perspective, cloud storage leverages existing storage technologies. For example, storage virtualization, cloud storage can use this technology to build a huge storage pool, shielding the underlying storage differences, so as to provide a consistent service externally.

At the same time, Istor Huang Jingchong points out: "At this stage, cloud storage is the biggest opportunity to push vendors with iSCSI storage products." "The reason is simple, there are several special requirements for cloud storage, high performance, high scalability and capacity, and the most important excellent price/performance ratio, that is, cheap enough." Because cloud applications are services for the vast majority of users, they must be affordable to the general public, while their suppliers can maintain a certain profit, or they will cause no one to use or be offered. There is no doubt that excellent price/performance is the most needed feature of cloud storage.

Three characteristics of cloud storage

When it comes to cloud storage devices, NetApp Chen Wenjun points out that storage devices suitable for "cloud storage" should have three features. First, the most important point is flexibility, which means flexible support for protocols, as well as the ability to expand capabilities and capacity, and space scalability. The second is the ability to provide an efficient technology architecture, and efficient storage can consume less power, space and refrigeration. The third is about the high availability of storage, especially the ability to move and migrate applications in a "cloud" environment without affecting the availability of it.

These are some of the commonalities that support the need for cloud storage. As one of the earliest manufacturers of cloud storage concept, Innovation Branch Storage Technology Co., Ltd., deputy general manager of Technical Support Department of Feng Kai, said: "For a digital campus, we in addition to building a lot of application systems, conventional storage, you can properly consider cloud storage." Cloud storage implementations differ from previously seen physical storage devices, just like we use the Internet, do not need to care about what hardware to use, use the Internet only need access, with user name and password on the Internet can be, do not need to care about the internet on how many switches, routers, cloud storage to bring us the same. ”

He also emphasized the flexibility, simplicity and high availability of cloud storage, "building private cloud storage in campus data centers that provide services to different hosts and clients, and do not need to pay attention to hardware devices by accessing only space services." So we can put a lot of data files in the library into the cloud storage, and scale expansion is easy. and cloud storage client nodes can be parallel, and many relatively low-end devices can work externally. ”