Mohammed NaserThe cloud storage omnibus brings you all of the valuable content we've published on the topic as a one-stop solution. Read on.
Cloud storage is a vital part of any discussion about cloud computing. Over the years, we have published a lot of content on cloud storage and related topics. This omnibus aims to bring you all of those valuable, informational content together so that you can access it all from a one-stop solution. Each section is linked to a detailed blog where you can find more information about the said topic. Here's what you need to know about cloud storage. Let's start from the basics.
What is Cloud Storage?
Cloud storage is the act of storing data and workloads on the cloud instead of an on-premise infrastructure (excluding private cloud systems). This facility of the cloud is not only availed by organizations but is also readily available to individuals. Certain factors contribute to the rise in cloud storage solutions, including cloud adoption, the need to lower CAPEX, research and development upgrades, and the growing need for enterprise mobility.
Types of Cloud Storage
Fundamentally, there are three types of cloud storage solutions available for businesses – object storage, file storage, and block storage. Here is a glance at each of them.
As a flexible storage solution, object storage allows any data for the desired duration, facilitates easy retrieval of data, and is ideal for unstructured data, binary, or blobs. It adapts to frequent component failures of systems via continual monitoring, fault tolerance error detection, automatic recovery. Object storage can accommodate massive data sets and files.
As the name indicates, in file storage, the data is stored in files. These files are then sorted and set up in folders arranged into directories, subdirectories, and more. Files in file storage are generally easy to name, delete, or customize sans additional interfaces. As a fully managed network-attached storage solution, it is ideal for unstructured data/shared file storage.
Many cloud enterprise workloads are currently run using block storage. In this type of cloud storage, data is divided into sections called blocks and stored in a system that can be physically distributed. Each block has a unique identifier, allowing the system to track and assemble them as needed. A block storage system is used in cases where quick retrieval and manipulation of data are required.
Achieving Economical Goals of Cloud Storage
We are all aware that cloud storage is a more secure environment for your data and consider it cost-efficient. But, cost efficiency only comes into play if we know how to utilize the resources fully. You should also be aware of the factors contributing to storage bills if you run workloads in a public cloud.
- Capacity
- Network
- Transactions
- Snapshots and backup
- Bandwidth allocation
As important as it may be to make the most of your data in the cloud, one cannot forget the costs associated with it. The performance of your data must be efficient and cost-effective. This balance is hard to strike for a lot of businesses. We are here to address this issue and help you find your break-even point.
Prioritizing the following features will enhance data performance economically:
- Deduplication
- Compression
- Tiering
Storage in Private Clouds
Private cloud storage or internal cloud storage is a system where data resources from an enterprise are stored within dedicated servers. It offers the same public cloud storage attributes, such as flexibility, scalability, etc. but doesn't use shared servers for data storage. The servers can be hosted in a cloud provider's data center, its own data center, or on-premise at the company. There are cases where companies have to keep their data in specific locations to comply with legal, geographical, or security regulations. Private cloud solutions will help them customize their storage accordingly and still harvest the benefits of cloud storage.
NVMe Storage - The New Revolution
NVMe stands for Non-Volatile Memory Express. It is a new transport and storage access protocol that works on flash and next-gen SSDs (Solid State Drives). It is a highly scalable, NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) optimized, high-performance storage protocol. It efficiently connects the host to a memory subsystem and is built on high-speed PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) lanes.
The NVMe protocol uses low latency and parallel data paths to access the media, offering higher performance. The operational structure and architecture of it are similar to high-performance processors. Traditional protocols used many CPU cycles to access data for applications. This wasn't very cost-effective for companies. NVMe is capable of handling rigorous workloads within the same kind of infrastructure.
A Glance at Open Source Ceph Storage
In simple terms, Ceph is a free and open source storage solution that is designed to allow object, block, and file storages from a unified system. Ceph is designed to be self-managed and self-healing. It can deal with outages on its own and constantly works to reduces costs in administration.
Ceph is highly scalable, runs on commodity hardware, and is specifically designed to handle enterprise workloads aiming for entirely distributed operations sans any failure points. Ceph storage is also fault-tolerant and becomes so by replicating data. This means that there really are no bottlenecks in the process while Ceph is operating.
How Do You Handle Unstructured Data in Cloud?
Unstructured data can include pretty much all kinds of information. The file sizes can range from anything to a few bits and bytes to gigabytes or more. Hence, there is no one-size-fits-all approach in terms of data storage. The type of storage where the data sits depends on the capacity and the set input/output (I/O) requirements. So, anything from low I/O performance (NAS, cloud instance, object storage) to high-performing, massive files (distributed file, object storage).
Cloud providers offer high-performance, scalable storage services to customers, and there is a high demand for these flexible services. Some come in subscription-based systems or open source, reducing the overall financial burden to enterprises and organizations.
Cloud Storage with VEXXHOST Cloud Solutions
As a reputed IaaS provider, we ensure that our clients get the best type of cloud storage services for their data. Our storage services include all the styles – object storage, block storage, and file storage, using an open source platform, removing vendor-lock-ins. At VEXXHOST, we provide cloud solutions for a multitude of clients worldwide. We provide OpenStack-based clouds, including public clouds and dedicated and highly secure private cloud environments, ensuring utmost security and agility.
Take advantage of our limited-time deal just to set up a one-time, OpenStack-based private cloud deployment - at 50% off! The cloud will be running on the latest OpenStack release, Wallaby, which allows you to run Kubernetes and VMs in the same environment, and can be deployed in your own data centers with your hardware. Furthermore, all these will be deployed and tested in under a month!
What are you waiting for? Learn more!