What is the Cloud Storage and its Various Types?
Introduction
Cloud storage, which was felt beneficial only for business purposes, has increased its scope to the common man.
Today no one wants to lose their data. Physical memory devices can go corrupt anytime. So many companies are offering data backup services on cloud servers.
What is Cloud Storage?
Cloud storage means the storage of data in clouds. All the company’s data is stored and accessible from the multiple resources that comprise the cloud. So, cloud storage is the technique of data storage in which the digital data can be stored in logical pools.
It can provide the benefits of greater reliability and accessibility, strong protection for data backup, the disaster recovery process and low storage cost.
Cloud storage is based on a highly virtualized infrastructure. It is like broader cloud computing in terms of the access interface, the instant elasticity and scalability, and the metered resources. Cloud storage is made up of many distributed resources, and it has a high fault tolerance for redundancy and data distribution.
Cloud storage can be of many types: –
Personal Cloud Storage
Personal cloud storage is used to store the individual data in the clouds and provide the individual right to access the data from anywhere, and it also provides the data syncing and sharing capabilities from multiple devices.
Mostly, the personal cloud offers storage space for consumers to store their data. Consumers can store and retrieve their data anywhere and anytime through the Internet or mobile network. An Example of personal cloud storage is the Apple iCloud.
Public Cloud Storage
Public cloud storage is a model for cloud-based computing in which services such as file storage, email, instant messaging and other services are provided over the internet via web-based software. By storing your data on someone else’s computer, you can take advantage of large storage capacity without having to pay large data-transfer costs. Public cloud storage is a big deal at present because we seem to be witnessing a fundamental change in computing: the emergence of devices with computing power similar to that of a supercomputer on your desktop.
Data is stored on the storage service provider’s premises and accessed through network services. The storage service provider carries out all the management tasks associated with storage, such as upgrading and replacing. You just pay for the amount of storage space that is consumed.
Typically, this storage capacity is somewhat inexpensive because of economies of scale, with different performance levels and availability at different price points. Security and multitenancy are major areas of concern for data stored in the public storage cloud that need to be evaluated following business requirements. Storage resources can be scaled up or down to meet user requirements.
In this model, the bulk of capital expenditures (CAPEX) to acquire storage capacity is shifted to operational expense because the storage cloud service provider purchases the resources and therefore incurs the CAPEX.
Private Cloud storage
This is the form of the arrangement that refers to the scenario in which a company and a cloud storage service provider are integrated into the data centre of the company. In this configuration, the data service provider hosts the service provider’s infrastructure within the company’s data centre and is responsible for its overall management.
The data is kept on the servers of the cloud storage service provider, and it can be accessed through the private network of the customer. The client is welcome to take care of the management themselves or contract the task out to the service provider. Just like with public cloud storage, different price points can be assigned to varying levels of performance and availability.
In contrast to the public model, the data stored behind enterprise firewalls on dedicated hardware is significantly more protected. Security and multitenancy concerns are comparable to those of traditional information technology due to the fact that the storage space is not shared with any other organisations. When applied to this model, storage consolidation and virtualization may result in significant cost savings for the client.
Hybrid Cloud Storage
Hybrid cloud storage is the integration of cloud services and on-premises storage to provide the best of both worlds. It is an architecture that combines public cloud and private cloud services to deliver a seamless solution to businesses.
It allows enterprises to use multiple storage services and combine cloud storage with on-premises storage for redundancy and cost-effectiveness. As the storage market is highly competitive, many enterprises have started choosing hybrid cloud storage over single cloud storage as it increases availability, agility and efficiency.
For example, business-critical data (Human resources, Payroll etc.) can be stored in the dedicated local storage or local private cloud to provide security and control over the important data, and less useful data can be saved on the public cloud storage.
In real life, such examples can be seen in the case of a website hosting the downloadable files on large file sharing sites or Google Drive or DropBox etc., instead of saving on its own server due to storage or security issue.
Why Choose Hybrid Cloud Storage?
Cost Savings: Hybrid storage is a cost-effective solution that allows enterprises to save money and reduce the total cost of ownership by choosing a flexible and multi-tenant architecture.
Scalability: Hybrid storage is scalable and flexible; it can be easily scaled up or down as per your business needs.
Control: With hybrid storage, you have full control over your data and can make changes whenever needed without any limitations.
Conclusion
Many benefits arise from cloud storage; one of them is that data is accessible from anywhere as long as there is internet access. Another benefit of cloud storage is that it provides protection from data loss and is a low-cost method to store the data more securely.
The company needs to pay for the storage they use based on the average consumption during the year, but this does not mean the cloud storage is less expensive. The only difference is that, in this case, the company incurs operating expenses more than the capital expense. There are also some problems with the cloud storage, like if the internet connection is slow or not working; you might have a problem accessing or sharing the file with others.