Cloud storage technology and its application

cloud storage provides storage services that store local data over the network in online storage provided by the storage Service provider (SSP). Users who need storage services no longer need to set up their own data centers, simply request storage services from the SSP, thereby avoiding duplication of storage platforms and saving expensive hardware and software infrastructure investments.


　　

The concept of
cloud storage, once proposed, has been the support and attention of many manufacturers. Amazon launches resilient block storage (EBS) technology to support data persistence storage, Google launches online storage services gdrive, content distribution Network service provider CDNetworks and cloud storage platform provider Nirvanix Strategic partnership, Provides an integrated platform for cloud storage and content delivery services; EMC buys Berkeleydatasystems, obtains the company's Mozy online service software, and carries out SaaS business; Microsoft launches Windowsazure, and build large data centers across the United States; IBM also takes cloud computing standards as part of a global backup center expansion program.


　　


in December 2009, the top ten forecasts for the IT and telecoms industry released by the Internet Data Center (IDC) said: Cloud computing will expand and mature, with many new public cloud hotspots, private cloud services, cloud applications, and services linking public clouds to private clouds.


　　


1. Cloud Storage Technology


　　


Compared to traditional storage systems, cloud storage systems have the following differences: First, from the functional requirements, the cloud storage system for a variety of network online storage services, while the traditional storage systems for such as high-performance computing, transaction processing applications; second, from the performance requirements, cloud storage services first need to consider the data security, reliability, efficiency and other indicators, and because of the user scale, wide range of services, complex and changeable network environment, the realization of high-quality cloud storage services will face greater technical challenges; third, from data management, cloud storage systems provide not only traditional file access similar to POSIX, It also needs to be able to support the massive data management and provide the public service support function, in order to facilitate the cloud storage system backstage data maintenance.


　　


based on the above characteristics, the overall architecture of cloud storage platform can be divided into 4 levels, from the bottom up in turn is: Data storage layer, data management layer, data service layer and user access layer.


　　


(1) Data storage layer


　　


Cloud Storage System provides a variety of storage services externally, the data of various services are stored in the cloud storage system, forming a mass data pool. From the view of most of the network Service background data organization, the traditional data organization based on single server is difficult to meet the throughput performance and storage capacity requirement under the multiuser condition of WAN (7); The data organization based on Peer-to-peer architecture needs huge number of nodes and complex coding algorithm to guarantee the data reliability [8]. In comparison, the data organization method based on multiple storage servers can better meet the application requirements of online storage services [9], when the user scale is large, the construction of Distributed data Center can provide better service quality for users in different geographical regions [10].


　　

The data storage layer of
cloud storage will interconnect different types of storage devices, realize the unified management of massive data, and realize the centralized management of storage devices, state monitoring and dynamic expansion of capacity, which is a service-oriented distributed storage system.


　　


(2) Data management layer


　　

The data management layer in the
Cloud Storage System architecture provides a unified view of public administration between different services for the upper tier. Through the design of a unified user management, security management, copy management and policy management, such as public data management functions, the underlying storage and upper application seamless convergence, to achieve the cooperative work between the multiple storage devices to provide a wide range of services to better performance.





(3) Data Service layer


　　

The
Data Service layer is a direct user-oriented part of the cloud storage platform that can be flexibly extended. According to user needs, can develop different application interface, provide corresponding services. such as data storage services, space leasing services, public resource services, multi-user data sharing services, data backup services.


　　


(4) User access Layer


　　


through the user access layer, any authorized user can be anywhere, using a network of terminal equipment, according to the standard common application interface to log into the cloud storage platform, enjoy the cloud storage services.


　　


compared to the traditional purchase of storage devices and deployment of storage software, the cloud storage approach has the following advantages:


　　


(1) Low cost and quick


　　


the traditional purchase of storage equipment or software customization, enterprises in accordance with the needs of information management, a one-time investment in a large amount of funds to purchase hardware equipment, build platform. Software development is a process of long feasibility analysis, demand investigation, software design, coding and testing. Often after the completion of software development, business needs have changed, have to rework the software, not only affect the quality, improve costs, but also delay the enterprise information process, at the same time resulting in low levels of duplication between enterprises and enterprise internal cyclical, High-cost technology upgrades. In the cloud storage mode, the enterprise does not need to put extra funds to build the platform except to configure the necessary terminal equipment to receive the storage service. Enterprises only need to rent the service by the number of users, avoid the risk of one-time investment, reduce the cost of use, and for the selected services, can immediately put into use, both convenient and fast.


　　


(2) easy to manage


　　


the traditional way, enterprises need to be equipped with professional IT staff for system maintenance, resulting in technical and capital costs. In cloud storage mode, maintenance and upgrade of the system are done by the cloud storage service provider, and the enterprise can enjoy the newest and most professional service at the lowest cost.


　　


(3) Flexible





the traditional purchase and customization mode, once the funds are completed in a one-time investment, the system can not be dynamically adjusted in the subsequent use. With the replacement of equipment, the backward hardware platform is difficult to dispose of; with the changing business needs, the software needs to be constantly updated and upgraded to adapt to it, resulting in high maintenance costs, easy to develop to an uncontrollable degree. But the cloud storage way generally according to the customer number, the use time, the service item carries on the charge. Enterprises can change according to business needs, personnel increase or decrease, financial capacity, at any time to adjust their rental services, really do "on-demand".