Is it possible to use cloud computing as primary storage?

For now and for the foreseeable future, cloud storage will be used primarily as an archive or backup. However, at some point, the cloud provider will begin to provide the cloud storage as the primary storage address. Why is it that cloud storage can be the primary storage and how much time do we have to become a reality? In this case, cloud storage is the primary storage that is different from the primary storage that the software, the service (SaaS) provider will use. As I said, the SaaS solution will require a typical first-tier storage capability. In this blog post, the cloud needs a second tier of applications that do not require as much performance as the main application within the datacenter.

Obviously, if you want cloud storage to work like a primary storage system, we will need a fast connection between the relatively close storage devices. For example, Zetta is basically providing this setting. They use their extended, clustered NAS (network-attached storage) settings (provided in the cloud) to increase performance concerns while designing local storage catalogs.

Another option is to take advantage of the composite pattern. This composite pattern combines local caching devices-which have been developed in the archive-and used by backup of the cloud-such as iron mountain,axcient and Nirvanix services. Why can't these cache devices be upgraded to store master data? This needs to overcome the problem of data connection speed, especially the need for a fast connection to the level of the metropolitan area network.

There are also data service issues. It is clear that NAS vendors have invested a lot of research and development effort in snapshots, replication, configuration, and a range of other NAS features. However, basic NAS services can be labeled and then configured on these devices. Both NAS and cloud vendors need to provide some form of global file system, a file system that transparently displays the time of the file. This allows small, fast local storage to "overflow" to the cloud storage directory. Of course, this will require support for mixed back-end storage. The downside of many NAS global file systems is that vendors tend to support only their own systems. Independent file virtualization feature providers, such as F5, EMC's rainfinity and autovirt, should be useful here.

NAS is available as primary storage in the cloud, and this implementation is much sooner than many people think. What about block-level storage? I will discuss this aspect later.