Expert podcast: How to evaluate a cloud computing gateway device

What are the technical advantages of cloud computing gateways? How much consolidation has happened in this field? Taneja group http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/5707.html "> founder, consulting Analyst Arun Taneja answered key issues related to cloud computing gateway devices, And how they consider this factor in disaster recovery and primary storage use cases. Please read the following conversation for more details.

Cloud computing gateway devices are purchased separately, but are they developed into built-in products? What do you think?

Arun Taneja: Simply answer: that is absolutely certain, but I must point out that none of us can anticipate this specific timetable. Let's analyze the situation on the market. Most of the storage devices available to large enterprises and small and medium-sized companies are from established companies such as EMC, IBM, HP, Dell, NetApp, and Hitachi. And their companies are also engaged in disk drive sales. For them, selling a lot of storage devices means a very good-looking report number for the year.

These types of gateways basically make cloud computing the storage component, and the likelihood that they proactively push this gateway solution to implement quickly is essentially zero. But then again, I know that things are always going in the right direction, and it will always come true.

When you see some of the latest features of the gateway, which one do you think is the most important?

Taneja: I totally agree that cloud computing gateway products are beginning to mature. I think, as a market, we have developed to the third stage. The question now is, which feature is more important? I must say, you should ask yourself, ' What are the main functions of cloud Gateway design? ' Because there are many gateway products on the market, some focus on providing primary storage functionality, while others focus on backup and disaster recovery (DR) applications, some on archiving, and some on collaboration.

Here, let's consider the main storage type of gateway, such as Storsimple. In this case, caching, data replication, compression, snapshot technology, cloning, cloud based snapshots, and cloud based cloning. All of these features are extremely critical for primary storage. In addition, I have to add technology to reduce latency.

This is the most descriptive use case. The function that has the largest number of requirements is the one that needs to be implemented most. Now, for example, if you're considering DR and backup applications, it's clear that compression technology and WAN optimization must be common themes for both applications. However, for Dr applications, you might want the device to be physical or virtual.

So why would you want a virtual device? Because you need to be able to create the device in cloud computing so you can choose to run the application in cloud computing so you can recreate the entire infrastructure class in the cloud to keep it away from the disaster, or you can have the application run remotely elsewhere, But you still need access to storage devices in the cloud. That way, it's only accessible through the cloud computing gateway device. Therefore, such a virtual device is critical. So, this is an example of a Dr.

We all know that Microsoft has just acquired Storsimple. Would you like to have more consolidation in the domain of cloud computing gateways?

Taneja: First let's take a look at why Microsoft buys Storsimple, perhaps thinking about their buying motives will help answer that question. Microsoft wants as much data as possible to be included in their company's Windows Azure. As a result, they effectively bought the gateway and provided it to the company and their customers. It remains to be seen how they will pack, how they will sell it, and whether they will let these devices appear in their service.

But Microsoft's ambitions are huge because they have no old hardware to protect. Therefore, it will be the kind of company that is most likely to continue to develop gateway products in depth. Of course, Google will also think of another big cloud-computing provider with the same ambitions.

At present, Amazon has completed its own gateway products, but Amazon's hardware equipment level is very weak. This simply translates iSCSI to rest (presentation State Transfer) protocol or rest API (Application programming Interface). So at some point in time they may decide that they need a stronger, more complete engine or device. As buyers of these existing small companies, they will actually become a strong candidate.

How can storage managers be able to discern the pros and cons of Gateway products?

Taneja: Well, let's use the previous method to answer the question: what is the problem we are trying to solve? Do we try to use the primary storage as a cloud computing storage device? Are we trying to apply cloud computing to backup, DR, archive, or collaborative applications? Once we start thinking about the problem, Then we analyze the minimum functional requirements that need to be included in the device and provide a good application experience.

That's how I've done this, and how I can determine whether a device is complete in its architecture and product form. So if you have a device like this, all it does is convert the iSCSI data flow from the datacenter to the storage bucket for the cloud. This is the bottom line for the set of features you need, but it does not include data replication, compression, and WAN optimization. If you have hundreds of tons of data from the data center, from the application, then there will be hundreds of millions of data in the cloud, and this data will require you to pay the relevant costs.

Well, what would you say if I dropped 100TB of data to 10TB? So I saved a lot of money for this IT company.

Let's talk about file sharing and file synchronization. Do you think this is a feature that all gateway devices will have?

Taneja: By the way, this is a very good use case for cloud computing. At present, a large number of products have provided simple file sharing services, such as Apple's icloud. In this scenario, it is very simple, I'm a user, these are my files, I happen to store them in icloud, and if I happen to have 5, 4, 3 devices, Apple devices, I can actually access these files through these devices, I can use the ipad, IPod, etc. And so on the device for file sharing.

And then you have a whole series of other collaborative work that can be done to the fullest extent by five people around the world working together on the same file. This, of course, requires very complex locking mechanisms and very complex access methods.

At the device level, we do have companies like Panzura focusing on collaboration capabilities. So, in fact, gateways are designed specifically for collaboration. Although it may have some other features, the most important one is collaboration.

So, over time, I think some of the features will appear in some of the existing gateway products, but complex collaboration is still a tricky problem. Therefore, I hope that in the market will continue to be very focused on collaboration features equipment.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)