What is cloud storage? What is cloud storage?

The concept of cloud storage (cloud storage), once proposed, has been supported and concerned by many vendors. Amazon's elastic Compute Cloud (EC2: Resilient computing Cloud) cloud storage product, launched two years ago, is designed to provide users with more powerful storage and computing capabilities in the form of Internet services. Content distribution Network service provider CDNetworks and the industry's renowned cloud storage platform service provider Nirvanix released a new partnership and announced a strategic partnership to provide the industry's only current cloud storage and content delivery service integration platform. Six months ago, Microsoft had launched the Windows Live SkyDrive Beta test version of the network mobile hard drive service. In the near future, EMC has announced the inclusion of a trusted infrastructure project, dedicated to global research collaboration on trust and reliability assurance in the cloud computing environment, and IBM has also taken cloud computing as part of its 300 million dollar expansion plan for global backup centers.

Cloud storage becomes more and more hot, we talk about "cloud", and each has its own argument, each has its own views, so what is the cloud storage?

Cloud storage is a new concept that extends and develops in the concept of cloud computing (cloud computing). Cloud computing is the development of distributed processing (distributed Computing), parallel processing (Parallel Computing) and Grid computing (grids Computing), which automatically splits large computational handlers into countless smaller subroutines through the network, A large system of multiple servers is calculated and analyzed to pass the processing results back to the user. With cloud computing technology, Web service providers can handle tens of millions of billions of dollars of information in a matter of seconds to achieve the same powerful network services as supercomputers.

Cloud storage concept is similar to cloud computing, it refers to the network through the cluster application, grid technology, or Distributed file system functions, a large number of different types of storage devices in networks through the application software together to work together to provide data storage and business access functions of a system.

If this explanation is still difficult to understand, we can use the structure of WAN and internet to explain cloud storage.

Cloud-like network structure

I believe you have a good understanding of LAN, WAN and Internet. In the common LAN system, we in order to better use the local area network, generally speaking, users need to know very clearly the network of each hardware and software model and configuration, such as what type of switch, how many ports, the use of what routers and firewalls, respectively, how to set. How many servers are in the system, and what operating systems and software are installed separately. What type of connection cables are used between the devices, and what XML:LANG=IP addresses and subnet masks are assigned.

But when we use the wide area network and the Internet, we just need to know what access network and username, password can connect to the WAN and the Internet, do not need to know how many switches, routers, firewalls and servers in the WAN and Internet, do not need to know the data is through what route to our computer , you don't need to know what software is installed on your network, and you don't need to know what connection cables and ports are used between the devices in your network.

Wide area networks and the Internet are completely transparent to specific users, and we often use a cloud-like graph to represent WANs and the Internet.

Although cloud-shaped graphics contain a large number of switches, routers, firewalls, and servers, these are not needed for specific WAN and internet users. This cloud-like graphics represents the wide area network and the Internet to bring you the interconnection of Internet services, no matter where we can through a network access cable and a user, password, you can access the WAN and the Internet, enjoy the network to bring our services.

Reference cloud network structure, create a new cloud-like structure of the storage system, the storage system consists of a number of storage devices, through the cluster function, distributed file system or similar grid computing functions together to work together, and through a certain application software or application interface, Provide a certain type of storage service and access service to the user.

When we use a separate storage device, we have to be very clear about what type of storage device, what interfaces and transport protocols you have, how many disks there are in the storage system, what type, what size, and what kind of connection cable to use between the storage device and the server. In order to ensure data security and business continuity, we also need to establish corresponding data backup system and disaster tolerance system. In addition, regular state monitoring, maintenance, software and hardware updates and upgrades are necessary for storage devices.

If you are using cloud storage, everything mentioned above will not be needed for users. All devices in a cloud-like storage system are completely transparent to the user, and any authorized user anywhere can access the cloud storage via a single access cable to the cloud storage.

Cloud storage is not storage, but service

Like a cloud wide area network and the Internet, cloud storage does not refer to a specific device, but to a collection of many storage devices and servers. Using cloud storage, the consumer does not use a single storage device, but rather a data access service that comes with the entire cloud storage system. So strictly speaking, cloud storage is not storage, but a service.

The core of cloud storage is the combination of application software and storage device to realize the transformation of storage device to storage service through application software.