Hybrid Cloud computing: three ways to implement

In this article you will learn that there are three different ways to implement hybrid cloud computing in your data storage environment. We will provide detailed information on the different cloud software options you can choose and help you understand which one is best for your organization.

When traditional storage systems or internal cloud computing storage use public cloud computing storage, hybrid cloud computing comes naturally. However, some key requirements need to be met in order to allow mixed cloud computing to work properly. The first and most important point is that a hybrid cloud computing storage service must behave like a similar storage device. It should be transparent in addition to the possibility of a delay in accessing the public cloud. Mechanisms must be designed to ensure that active and frequently accessed data is kept within the organization, while inactive data is placed in the cloud. When data is delivered to cloud computing and sent back from cloud computing, hybrid cloud computing often relies on a flexible policy engine to define the environment.

For now, there are three different ways you can choose to implement hybrid cloud computing:

Storage software across internal storage devices and public cloud computing storage services

Storage Gateway via cloud computing

Through application integration

Implementation of cloud computing storage software

If both internal and external storage cloud computing is running the same cloud-computing storage software, the combination of private cloud computing storage facilities (internal storage facilities) and public cloud computing storage services into a single heterogeneous storage cloud will be the only possible choice, not the way of application-tailored integration or cloud computing gateways. While standard initiatives such as the cloud Computing Data Management Interface (CDMI) of the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) are in progress, the lack of industry standards has limited the innovative integration of various storage cloud computing. So what we're seeing is that cloud computing vendors selling their products to companies and service providers is a prerequisite for creating hybrid cloud computing. While some cloud-computing storage providers provide their storage stacks as internal storage cloud computing facilities, it enables easy integration with public cloud computing storage services.

A typical representative of the latter is the Nirvanix company. Until recently, Nirvanix still only provided public cloud computing services, but if Nirvanix hnode were used, those in-house cloud storage users would be able to run Nirvanix cloud computing storage facilities internally, And on-demand integration with Nirvanix storage Delivery Network cloud computing storage.

Rackspace Company has always positioned its cloud file as a cloud computing storage service, but the company has now opened its cloud files and former openstack.org source code to facilitate the process of standardization work. The goal is to achieve a hybrid cloud computing between service providers and enterprise users, as well as the Rackspace Company's public cloud computing storage service.

Until recently, cloud-computing storage service providers had only two options, either using one of the Open-source cloud storage offerings (such as luster and mogilefs) and accepting their attributes and limitations, or developing their own solutions. However, over the past few years, cloud-computing storage software has become a commercial product provided by several vendors to business and service providers.

EMC's Atmos is the most typical representative of many commercially available products. It is a software-based, a storage stack that is not hardware-independent, object-based, including the following three loosely coupled services: A presentation layer that handles connecting customer interfaces through rest, soap, and traditional file system protocols; A metadata management layer that manages the storage of data objects and the protection and distribution of data objects in storage nodes And a storage target layer that connects to the storage node. It can be run on dedicated hardware or VMware virtual machines. As a large-scale system architecture, it can realize the expansion of PB level storage capacity by simply adding new nodes. EMC companies sell their atmos to companies and vendors, so internal atmos deployments can combine with cloud atmos services.

EMC Company's most representative customer is at&t. However, At&t's synaptic storage virtual cloud is a hybrid storage cloud product that is quite different from other similar products. It runs in the At&t company's data center, but customers are accessed through At&t's MPLS network. As a result, it combines the security and performance of private cloud computing with the economy and scalability of public cloud computing products.

In addition to EMC's Atmos, there are other cloud-computing storage software offerings. Caringo Company relocated its content addressed storage (CAS) products to a cloud computing storage solution and launched the Castor content storage software on the market. The cloud computing storage platform launched by Cleversafe Corporation can eliminate the need of replication by using the information dissemination algorithm of the data in each node of cloud computing, and the Cleversafe company claims that compared to products that have to store multiple replicas in storage nodes to achieve redundancy, The company's products have achieved higher storage usage.

Implementation of cloud computing storage Gateway

Cloud computing storage gateways are located between internal storage facilities and public cloud computing storage services. They assume a translation role between traditional storage protocols and more esoteric cloud-computing storage protocols and APIs. Historically, public cloud computing storage can only be accessed through application-customized integration. In addition, cloud computing gateways often perform internal (private) storage facilities through the policy engine to migrate information data to public cloud computing storage, and vice versa.

Cloud computing storage gateways differ in a number of key areas. They are either block based or file-based, and in the data center they exist in the form of block based storage facilities or NAS devices. Duplicate data replication and compression are also key features of cloud computing gateways, and these two features have an immediate impact on cloud computing storage costs. The ability to transfer data and encrypt data stored in the storage cloud is also a must. Some gateways are designed and optimized for backup and archive, and some are tightly integrated with applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, while others are targeted at the business cloud storage tier as a complement to the internal storage tier.

Application integration implementation with mixed cloud computing

All public cloud computing storage services provide APIs to interface with internal cloud computing storage software and cloud computing gateways, but they can also be used directly for integration with public cloud computing storage applications. The cloud computing storage API enables customers ' internal and commercial applications to develop public cloud computing storage services through the rest interface.

For example, backup application vendors have started adding support for public cloud computing storage in their backup suite tools. The Symantec Company provides cloud computing storage support for NetBackup and Backup exec. Similarly, the CommVault Company's Simpana backup software integrates the functionality of public cloud computing storage.

You choose to implement hybrid cloud computing through cloud computing, cloud storage gateways, or application integration, which can be achieved by selecting a number of vendors and their products. Be sure to carefully consider your choices and choose the hybrid cloud implementation approach that best suits your storage environment.