What is cloud storage
Cloud storage refers to saving data on a storage apparatus maintained by a 3rd party. Instead of storing data on native applications such as your computer's hard drive, you save it in a remote database. Connection between the database and your computer is provided via the internet. It is has nothing to do with the weather or cloud systems.Cloud storage providers give shared services and infrastructure convergence. This is meant to allow organizations to get their applications up and running faster, with less maintenance and easier manageability. Therefore allowing IT to adjust IT resources at a very fast pace to satiate inconstant business demand.
The ever increasing presence of high capacity networks, storage devices, and cheaper computers, besides service-oriented architecture, virtualization, autonomic and utility computing have led to colossal growth of this service. The result is that it is as good as software programs installed locally on end-user computers. Equipment such as laptops, desktop computers, smart-phones and tablets are used to access cloud computing. With HTML5 and AJAX these user interfaces seem similar to, or perhaps even better than, native applications.
However, some persons have raised privacy and security issues on cloud storage/computing. Cryptography, particularly public key infrastructure, to use of multiple cloud providers, standardization of APIs, and improving virtual machine support and legal support have emerged as very effective solutions to these.
Current cloud storage providers offer online storage way out for both businesses and individuals at affordable costs.
One of the biggest benefits given by cloud storage providers is that the customer only needs to pay for only the amount of storage used they do not have to pay extra, there no hidden charges. The result being that cloud database service is now becoming a rage.
Some of the cloud database providers give services such as advanced storage problem way out that complement the needs, backup-as-a-service, file-servers-as-a-service, disaster-recovery-as-a-service, business-continuity-as-a-service, archival-as-a-service, compliance: PCI, HIPPA, SAS70.
They also offer custom cloud storage, API and SNIA CDMI support, implementation of storage controllers and data-migration services.
For companies into IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) and cloud platform provider, the platform is developed, designed, supported and tested.
They also help cloud database providers provide SNIA CDMI support for third-party application integration, customize cloud storage API, support leading storage key, help in data migration services, scalability and performance testing of your platform.
Moreover, Cloud Governance and Management Solution providers are also helped in developing, designing, testing and supporting solutions.
Cloud Storage, Native Data Backup and Virtual Data Room
A generational shift happened ever since Cloud applications/storage/compute emerged on the IT road map. Cloud storage has 3 traits. To begin with the storage service must be over a network. Next the storage pool must allow for easy scalability without downtime. Last and not least the storage pool must be easy to manage especially when scaled.
Cloud storage is a normal extension of Software-as-a-Service and online applications like SalesForce and Cloud computing have received huge popularity due to initiatives of Google, Amazon and VMware. The Wikipedia has defined the the cloud computing architecture as follows:
"The architecture behind cloud computing is a massive network of "cloud servers" interconnected as if in a grid running in parallel, sometimes using the technique of virtualization to maximize the utilization of the computing power available per server."
With the advent of Amazon S3, the concept of Cloud migrated to a storage function. In a cloud storage scenario numerous commodity hardware devices are coupled together by software to build a pool of storage.
So cloud storage is not just a storage rental available online. It's more about architecture, performance, and scaling where you add standard hardware from your preferred commodity storage vendor, and get shared access through a standard network.
Cloud storage is loosely coupled and the nodes do not need to communicate with each other to facilitate supercomputers writing in parallel to the same file spread across multiple nodes. Being loosely-coupled allows fine performance for multiple copies of a single file across multiple nodes or multiple files and offers huge scalability.
Are you wondering which good instances are for cloud solutions to fill in? Well, some of the good examples of Cloud Storage include File Archiving, Digital content distribution & serving, streaming media or backup, video surveillance, and archival storage.
The Cloud Storage is here to stay and certainly holds great promise in times of recessionary economy where corporations can buy storage gigabyte at a time in contrast to complete systems and yet get all the benefits of latest technology.
Shopping for Cloud Storage
Cloud storage: it's one of the more recent innovations in computer data backup and storage. Rather than store your data on hardware that you own, you put it "out there" somewhere on the Internet. Quite a few companies offer this service so shopping for cloud storage can be rather overwhelming.
The first step is to identify exactly what you want to use your cloud storage for.
Google Drive - A New Cloud Storage System
Cloud storage services basically involve the users data being stored at a remote location known as the cloud. Services such as this offer numerous advantages over internal storage. The fact that the files are located centrally means that they can be accessed from other devices. This means that users can view their photographs and other data from their laptop computer or home PC. The other main advantage of this type of system is that if the mobile phone is lost or stolen important data remains safe. This data can then be easily transferred to a new device
The new Google Drive facility may prove to be the most popular of all. Google design the Android operating system which is the OS that is used by most smartphones and therefore integration of this new service is likely to be superb on these phones.
Apple has also recently launched their popular iCloud service for users running an iOS device and Microsoft has also recently launched their popular Onedrive service for users running an windows mobile devices
A great example of cloud storage in action would be Apples' new iCloud service. You might have heard of it. This is a great example of a cloud storage service. If you own an iPhone and like to take pictures, those pictures on your camera role are automatically uploaded to the cloud. This is great, because if you also own an Apple TV, you can take photos while out of the home and upon your return, view them on the big screen. This is all possible due to cloud storage.
There are many cloud storage providers, all priced differently though you'll mostly find them priced based on the amount of storage you require. There are also a handful of free cloud storage providers but these generally offer very small amounts of data storage. If you're planning on backing up a huge amount of data (a lot of photos or movies for example), you may need to shop around and find the best plan for you. However, if you're only looking to backup a handful of documents or contact info, perhaps the free cloud storage providers are worth taking a look at.
Cloud Storage Services for Businesses
Cloud storage accounts are extremely easy to set up and require no software downloads in most cases. All a person has to do is find a storage service, sign up for an account, pay a small monthly fee based on the size of storage space they need, and upload files, it is that simple. The owner of the storage account may restrict access to certain files so that they can access these files for their own personal needs and not have to worry about security issues. They may also allow access to other files that they wish to share with other businesses. This is similar to emailing files to other business workers only it is less time consuming.
Cloud storage also benefits businesses by allowing them to upload the day's work related orders to one central location so that all of the workers in the building can gain access to the file. Rather than having to deliver work orders through various emails, workers simply log into the specific account and retrieve their orders for the day. This promotes better workflow and productivity throughout the business. Increased productivity leads to increased profits, therefore providing financial increase to the business. The workers may then share their day's work through the storage service so it is all located in one convenient place. Sign up any of these cloud services:
Google Drive (Google product)
Onedrive (Microsoft Product)
iCloud (Apple Product)
Dropbox (Yahoo affiliated product) etc