Cloud concepts are not to be confused: Cloud Backup vs. Cloud storage technology

Cloud hype has blurred the boundaries between cloud storage and cloud backup recovery and restore (Cloud Burr). Even the conceptual differences between cloud storage and cloud storage, as well as "sync and Sharing", Blur. Many vendors are happy with this because it makes their programs look more attractive to potential customers. But vague cloud definitions confuse markets, hinder the pace of technology deployment and propulsion, and ultimately hurt everyone in the market.

This article compares cloud storage to cloud backup recovery and restore.

Cloud storage Definition

Cloud storage is in many cases confused with the storage in the cloud. Although this difference is very obvious.

Cloud storage is the application of the cloud through the Internet or VPN connection. Cloud Application Data is located on--das, SAN, Nas, or object storage in any form of local storage. The storage location of the cloud application remains transparent to the user.

On the other hand, cloud storage refers to a user or application accessing cloud storage in the form of a Web service application interface directly via the Internet or VPN. The Web Service Application interface is divided into rest or soap two interfaces, which will soon be unified as CDMI (Cloud Data management interface). While some will downplay the difference between cloud storage and storage, it doesn't matter. Cloud storage is an emerging storage that differs from traditional San or file storage. The many features and performance of cloud storage are designed to meet the storage challenges associated with the growth of massive amounts of inactive data, such as:

• Linearly expand performance and access speed as capacity grows.

• Migrate data storage on demand to distributed physical sites.

• Ensure that data storage is highly adaptable and self-healing, and can be stored for years.

• Ensure privacy and security in a multi-tenant environment.

• Allows users to scale performance and capacity on demand based on policy and service patterns.

• Changes to the storage purchase mode, charging only for the storage costs actually used, rather than on all storage systems containing unused storage capacity.

• End disruptive technology upgrades and data migrations.

Traditional storage systems can also address some of these problems when available capacity, performance, and objects allow, but few can do so. Cloud storage technology allows many users to quickly consume petabytes of data storage capacity, hundreds of millions of of objects, and dozens of GB of throughput per second. This feature is ideal for data archiving and backup. This is why there is confusion between cloud backup and cloud storage.

Cloud Backup, Recovery and restore definitions (also known as Cloud Burr)

Cloud storage is a cloud-based storage service provided by the managed services provider (MSP). It is intended to replace the deployment, operation, management, placement, power and cooling of the user's own inactive data. Sometimes this technique can be confusing because some backup software is also written to or backed up to cloud storage, and can be recovered and restored from cloud storage. However, cloud storage service providers are not cloud burr service providers. They are different in their professional areas and do not provide backup, recovery, and restore services. They may not be doing much to help with data recovery or disaster recovery. They will also not provide advice on how to save a backup compliance. There are two distinct types of services.

Cloud Burr is a cloud based application. Data backups are stored both locally and in the cloud, and the cloud can be one or more private data centers or virtual data centers (provided by the IaaS vendor). Local backup Saves the most recent backup data. And the cloud keeps all the data. Local backups can be used to quickly and efficiently recover data to the most recent backup node. The backup data in the cloud is used to restore the data to the previous backup node (or the most recent backup node not saved on the local backup store), either for disaster recovery scenarios or for restoring data to a completely different site.

Cloud Burr store data in the cloud. Some cloud burr service providers actually use real cloud storage as a backup storage repository. Most of them do not. However, Cloud Burr incorporates legacy backup software, backup services, devices, storage, offline sites, recovery and restore services, and disaster recovery. Cloud Burr essentially outsource backup, recovery, and restore services to managed service providers.

Therefore, the cost of cloud Burr (generally based on monthly per gigabyte price) appears to be much more expensive than cloud storage, and the price of cloud storage is different from its order of magnitude. But this is an asymmetrical comparison. If you want to make a fair comparison, cloud storage should increase the backup software, storage hardware, training personnel for backup process management, and the cost of these people. In these cases, if the backup is the primary, and this is the best reason to migrate data to the cloud, then Cloud Burr has lower TCO and better results, which can be a better choice.

If backup is just one of the reasons for storing data in the cloud (other reasons may be archiving, content distribution, workflow sharing, mail archiving, distributed data access, synchronization and sharing, etc.), or the need for backup outsourcing, cloud storage may be more appropriate.

What is sync and sharing?

Synchronization and sharing is a cloud application that can be used to store, including cloud storage. While many synchronous and shared service providers boast of being cloud storage or cloud burr providers, this is not the case. In fact, the terms of their contract (which most people will not bother to read) will specifically indicate that they are not allowed to use synchronous or shared services as backups.

In fact, synchronous and shared services are designed to replace FTP and NAS shared services. It needs to install client software on each device that needs to be synchronized. software allows files to be shared across multiple licensing devices, users, members, clients, and, at the same time, provide versioning in a very short period. However, this technique only saves a copy of a file that the user manually placed under the shared folder and does not serve as a service to automate all backup tasks and provide recovery and restore assistance.

Synchronization and sharing are indeed a useful cloud application, but not cloud storage or cloud burr.