CLOUD STORAGE REALITY

A CLOUD FOR COMPANIES OF ALL SIZES

Cloud Storage Reality Cloud Storage has been helped by the buzz and hype that surrounds it. Suppliers that bring out a Cloud focused storage solution or service seem to get immediate attention. The downside to this hype however is the assumption that the technology is new, unproven and risky. What may come as a surprise to many is that there are several Cloud Storage companies that have been in business for years and have real production customers.

uptime recently. Cloud Storage Software provider Bycast has had deployments since 2002 with real customers such as Banner Health and Orlando Regional Healthcare. Finally the market is being legitimized by the entrance of major storage companies into the market like EMC, and service offerings by Iron Mountain with its Digital Records Center for Medical Images and HP's Medical Archive Solution (MAS) both powered by Bycast Software. What is Cloud Storage...Really?

Cloud Storage is Practical With the increased pressure to contain or even reduce costs, Data Centers large and small are faced with the dilemma of dealing with the one thing that does seem to be recession proof; data growth. Cloud Storage is a practical solution to solve this problem and organizations of all sizes should examine its use. Cloud Storage's primary use case is to serve as an archive for inactive data. This data typically accounts for more than 80% of the storage that an IT department maintains. The movement of this data to a less expensive tier of storage could dramatically reduce costs. In addition to the archive use case a rapidly growing use of Cloud Storage is leveraging its geographically dispersed nature for collaboration. No longer do knowledge workers all work at the same giant corporate headquarters, the larger the organization the more locations are involved in various projects and the more collaboration is needed. True Cloud Storage systems should be able to disperse data geographically and then serve up the closest copy of that data when the user needs it. This not only further empowers the mobile workforce but can also reduce costs and increase green initiatives by further enabling the work from home or local hub concepts. Cloud Storage is Proven Cloud Storage should no longer be considered an experimental undertaking. Amazon's S3 and Nirvanix have had enterprise class

The term Cloud Computing and with it Cloud Storage is used to describe many different technologies. What exactly is Cloud Storage? It is a solution made up of software and hardware technologies that when integrated together enable storage to be utilized as ubiquitously as electricity. However instead of plugging into a wall socket for power the user "plugs in" to an intranet or internet to access storage. While this data can be and likely is geographically dispersed, the user accessing this data sees only one unied store. How, where and what the data is stored on happens in the background without user intervention or concern. How is it different from traditional storage? The key and important differentiators between Cloud Storage and other types of storage are its access over an intranet or internet connection and its geographic understanding of where the available components of the storage are. This is what provides its cloud like nature. There is no reason that Cloud Storage could not be used as a standard high capacity NAS or Disk Archive offering competing with other solutions in those markets. Cloud solutions in fact share a lot of commonality with archive storage solutions. Capabilities like scaling, redundancy and cost effectiveness are common in both tiers. It is unlikely that these NAS or Disk Archive specic solutions will morph well into internet or intranet geographically dispersed storage.

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Cloud Storage Differences

Dispersion Dispersion is more than just the replication feature that is now commonplace in most storage offerings. It is even more unique than multi-site replication. For most storage systems, replications sole purpose is the ability to recovery from a catastrophic failure at the primary site. What separates Cloud Storage from other forms of storage is the ability to geographically disperse data based on need as well as disaster recovery requirements. Cloud Storage sees the geographically dispersed points as still members of the same total storage pool, yet it also understands the availability from the requesting user to those access points. These additional copies of data are able to be leveraged so that the data is served from the storage that is closest to that user, optimizing bandwidth. Changes to that data are then replicated to other storage members of the Cloud. Nodes These storage members are made up of multiple nodes. These nodes can be off the shelf CPU and storage hardware or they can be custom designed for the task. These nodes will have the responsibilities of managing IO bandwidth and storage capacity. Common implementations are to have the nodes handle both responsibilities or have discrete units assigned to each. Granular However, in addition to scaling large, they must also have the ability to scale with granularity. This is the capability to cost effectively add storage in relatively small increments as the need arises. Requiring the customer to buy a traditional storage shelf of 14TB's of storage may not be economical if that storage is standing idle. Storage of course gets cheaper with time and should be added just as its needed, treating it like a just in time inventory item. The Cloud Storage approach, because of its nodal design of one or two nodes of storage, can be added allowing it to grow at the exact pace the customer or service provider needs to. Scale As it is with disk archiving, scale is critical in Cloud Storage implementations. Also scale is more than the ability to scale large, which is important, these infrastructures will be maintaining corporate assets or in the case of a service provider, multiple organization's or person's assets. In either scenario, the ability to scale to hundreds of petabytes, while continuing to meet service level agreements including uptime, restoration time in the event of disaster, and retrieval time as more users plug into the cloud, is essential. Ease With the ability to scale large and scale granular you can also scale with ease. The ease comes in two areas. First the addition of storage should be as simple as plugging in a lego block. In the case of a Cloud Storage System this should be a matter of installing the software, attaching the node to the network and identifying it as a node to the cluster. The additional storage should be instantly available to the Cloud with little further interaction. The ease should also be represented by not requiring the customer or infrastructure provider to have to go out and select from a very nite set of hardware and storage. The storage and processing hardware should be exible and congurable to the task at hand and the available hardware and storage resources. Finally a system of even petabytes should be as easy to manage as a system with a few hundred gigabytes. The Cloud Storage software should present all of its individual nodes as a single entity, possibly with different storage classes, and interacting with the Cloud on a day to day basis should be no different than a basic NAS device.

NFS Client

CIFS Client

HTTP Client

WebDav Client

Storage Storage

Storage Storage

Mgmt Node

Mgmt Node

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Self-Upgrading Finally since these solutions are designed to be in place for years if not decades, they will need to be self upgrading. The processing power of the nodes will continue to keep pace with Moores Law; the storage capacity installed in the nodes will need to keep pace with latest drive capacities and the network connection will need to keep pace with bandwidth upgrades. The self upgrading nature of Cloud Storage should be as simple as inserting a new node into the Cloud, identifying it as a replacement and then deactivating the old node. This capability is not only critical from a cost optimization perspective but also to eliminate the need to migrate data from today's storage platform to another. With traditional storage this is already an issue and companies deliver solutions just to handle migration of these relatively small data sets. Migration of data between generation one and generation X Cloud Storage platforms could possibly mean the movement of tens of terabytes of information. Doing so could take weeks if not months; instead this self upgrading nature of a Cloud Storage platform eliminates the concern altogether and it upgrades itself as components age.

Cloud Storage Packaging Models

Service Only The Service Only model is typied by companies who provide a Cloud Storage service and have either built their own software in-house, or licensed it from a software vendor and they have selected their own storage hardware platform. From a user perspective this allows for a relatively quick start, typically a monthly fee and one can start storing data. The challenge is that there is a dependence on these providers to prosper in their service business, and keep up to date with the latest innovations in Cloud Storage as well as any legal compliance requirements that may develop. There is concern that these service providers simply have too much on their plates to develop storage software, identify and integrate storage hardware, offer it as a service, maintain that service and its users the ability to scale as the demand scales. For a company looking to Cloud Storage as a service, utilizing one of these providers effectively makes the provider a reseller and eliminates their ability to add value.
Software Only There are a few vendors like Bycast which are focusing on developing the software component of a Cloud Storage infrastructure. This Software Only model allows for greater exibility than the Service Only model. For organizations looking to offer Cloud Storage in-house, a Private Cloud gives them the freedom to focus on the deliverable, letting someone else focus on maintaining the storage software. It also gives them the freedom to select whatever hardware they deem appropriate, even leveraging excess existing storage for example. Then as the capacity needs of the service grow storage can be added based on whatever price and performance ratio's are justied by their consumers. This method is also more likely preferred by organizations looking to provide Prepackaged Cloud The last option is the Prepackaged Cloud. This is a solution designed by hardware providers and integrated with Cloud Storage software. It has the advantage of a slightly more turnkey implementation but at the risk of higher costs and decreased exibility in storage selection. Additionally all future upgrades must come from that single provider; the exibility to integrate alternate storage into the solution is likely unavailable. Thus far most of the successful models come from either the Service Only model or the Software Only model. The turnkey model, although delivered by a few major storage name brands, has not yet shown signs of acceptance. In fact many major brands have chosen to deliver a Cloud solution by integrating a Software Only model with their hardware. As a result even if it is important to have a recognized name brand behind the service, that goal can be accomplished by adding software to name brand hardware, leaving the door open for a different hardware selection in the future. Cloud Storage as a service to other companies or individuals. Again, allowing them to focus on the service and not becoming storage software development experts. As is the case for companies providing Cloud Storage as an internal solution, the freedom to select storage based on customer need, allows for greater competitiveness in what will be a very competitive marketplace. Finally even end consumers that want to use the service in-house should strongly consider doing business with organizations that are utilizing a Software Only model. This gives them greater condence in knowing that their provider can focus on delivering a quality service. It does matter what your Cloud Storage provider is using for their solution; ask and understand.

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How is Cloud Storage Delivered

Two common terms associated with Cloud Storage are Public and Private. A Public Cloud uses an architecture similar to what is described above to deliver storage across an internet connection with some local footprint for applications that require fast access. Private Cloud Storage on the other hand leverages that same infrastructure to deliver storage across a single organizations IP infrastructure, typically its intranet. Public Public Clouds are the classic storage as a service offering, where subscriptions are purchased by month or year for a set amount of capacity. For many, especially smaller organizations, it is a perfectly acceptable method to store older or collaborative data. Public Cloud Storage providers can select any of the above deployment models. The rst mover companies into this category were forced in most cases to be a Service Only model because the other two options were not available. As the market has matured it is advisable for service providers to consider the other deployment models. Utilizing Public Cloud Storage has the inherent risks of security concerns, data availability and company longevity. These risks are offset by rapid, almost instant deployment and ubiquitous access. For individuals and for smaller organizations Public Cloud Storage can be an ideal solution. Private Private Cloud Storage utilizes the Cloud Storage concept but does so behind a companys own rewalls. This for the most part should eliminate the security concerns but does add the complexity of managing the Cloud infrastructure itself. Selection of the right solution, be it the Software Only model or the Prepackaged Cloud, should minimize the storage management complexity. A Private Cloud also provides the organization control over cost containment objectives and if that is a high priority for the organization, the Software Only approach has advantages.

Cloud Storage a Safe Bet It is rare that a single solution scales to meet the demands of individuals and businesses of all sizes. Cloud Storage is one of those offerings. For the very small organization it is a viable way to store and archive data for collaboration or record retention by subscribing to a Cloud Storage provider. For the very large organization retention of archived data plus the ability to leverage an innitely scalable, geographically dispersed solution to make sure the right data is at the right location at the right time with the protection of the organizations own internet can have immeasurable value. Finally for companies looking to add storage as a service to their current offerings, the options available now make it economically feasible to do so while maintaining good business sense. Cloud Storage in the economic realties of the next few years make is a practical alternative to managing the ever growing amount of data that needs to be maintained. With the options available it allows companies to leverage data growth as opposed to just dealing with it.

About Storage Switzerland

Storage Switzerland, is an analyst rm focused on the virtualization and storage marketplaces. Storage Switzerland provides strategic consulting and analysis to storage users, suppliers and integrators.

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