If you are using – or thinking of using – cloud storage services, then in most cases you can continue to manage your storage using SPACEWatch Storage Suite. In fact, when you’re paying a monthly per-GB charge for storage to a third party, there’s even more reason to get the best out of your storage.


So what do you mean by “cloud storage services”?


Cloud storage is relatively new. Originally delivered as a service, it gained initial popularity with Web 2.0 start-ups that wanted to minimise investment cost by outsourcing storage administration.

Cloud storage is now starting to attract general attention. Many organisations are now either starting to use – or evaluate – these types of services. Two flavours of cloud storage are becoming established: ‘public’ and ‘private’.

Public v Private: What is the difference?


The difference between public and private storage clouds is simply based on where the “cloud” is deployed. A public cloud is offered as a service, usually over an Internet connection, and hosted by a third party. Private clouds are deployed inside the firewall and typically managed by the user organization.

Public clouds typically charge a monthly per GB usage fee, often combined with bandwidth transfer charges. Users can scale storage on-demand and never need to purchase storage hardware themselves. Third party service providers manage the infrastructure and share infrastructure across many customers. In this way the user benefits from economies of scale – but direct management of storage use becomes more difficult.

Private clouds are built from software installed on customer-supplied commodity hardware. This storage is typically dedicated to one organisation and full control is retained. Scaling the cloud can be as simple as adding another server or additional disks to the pool and allowing the self-managing architecture to expand the cloud by adding performance and capacity.

How cloud storage fits into existing networks

Historically public cloud storage has relied on the proprietary WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning)[1] method for integration with PCs and servers over the Internet. More recently the more open REST[2] method has started to be adopted - a good example being services provided by Mezeo[3]. Cloud storage is a rapidly developing area - with hybrid private/public clouds becoming the next area of focus[4].

The role of cloud services in a tiered storage infrastructure


Public cloud storage is critically dependent on Internet network performance and reliability – both of which cannot be guaranteed. It is therefore uncommon today to find such storage being proposed for tier 1 storage use, except for small scale or personal use – e.g. as part of a mobile computing strategy.

Thus public cloud storage, where deployed, is more appropriately used for tier 2 or 3 use.

Even private cloud storage is not suited to all types of data. Storage clouds are best suited to unstructured or file data types - just the sort of data types that SPACEWatch is designed to help users manage. The following are currently typical candidates for cloud storage:

  • Larger files with lots of read access: Digital content, streaming media, video, music, etc.
  • Parallel streaming writes: Video surveillance (private clouds)
  • Long-term storage files: Backup and archival files (private clouds)
  • Geographically shared files: Access from different geographies (public clouds).

Managing cloud storage with SPACEWatch Storage Suite


SPACEWatch can be used in three distinct ways to ensure users get the best out of their investment in public cloud storage services:
  1. Monitoring and reporting on public cloud storage use, down to file level, including changes over time (e.g. anticipating future growth, or analysing the results of “cleanup” exercises)
  2. Proactively minimising the cost of public cloud services – e.g. by removing unwanted and unused files
  3. Automating the archiving of files from traditional or private cloud tier 1 storage, to public cloud tier 2 storage.
Method 1 and 2 are simple to implement and can be exploited using existing SPACEWatch Storage Suite 6 installations. The approach is illustrated below. Data is gathered from public or private clouds, and combined by SPACEWatch to allow users to produce consolidate reporting and analysis of all storage, as required.

Combined reporting and analysis of traditional and cloud storage using SPACEWatch

In the third method, SPACEWatch can be configured to dynamically archive defined types of files from traditional storage to cloud storage. Defined types of files might include files unused for a long period of time, for example. This method is illustrated below.

Using SPACEWatch to archive files to cloud storage

For technical support on configuring SPACEWatch for cloud storage management please contact support@sharpeware.com

References


1. WebDAV explained on Wikipedia
2. REST - Original dissertation by Roy Fielding
3. The Mezeo cloud storage platform
4. The cloud storage blog
    Managing Cloud Storage
    Highlights Product Guides • Manager’s Guide • Product Overview • User Guide Free Acrobat Reader is required to view these documents. © Sharpeware Ltd 2011 | All Rights Reserved | Home | Contact | Privacy statement Contact • Email • Telephone: USA +1 800 706-2939 UK +44 800 680-0669 Brussels +32-27470493