By Tommy Ibrahim
Over the past few years, an almost imaginary type of storage has become ever more prevalent. How did we get there? First, let’s think about how we humans spend our lives accumulating ‘stuff’, and once we have gathered enough stuff, we need to find places to store it all. The same applies to data that we come across daily; it seems that everyone with a computer is acquiring vast amounts of data and then trying to find a dēcent place to store it! 0ver the years, we have seen big external storage devices like hard drives. For people who prefer portable devices, there are jump drives or compact discs. Then there are those who are desperate, who delete entire folders for the sake of replacing them with new data. The solution and next frontier to all of this: cloud storage.
While cloud storage sounds like it has something to do with weather fronts and storm systems, it really refers to saving data to an off-site storage system maintained by a third party. Instead of storing information to your computer’s hard drive or other local storage device, you save it to a remote database. The Internet provides the connection between your computer and the database.
On the surface, cloud storage has several advantages over traditional data storage. For example, if you store your data on a cloud storage system, you’ll be able to get to that data from any location that has Internet access. You wouldn’t need to carry around a physical storage device or use the same computer to save and retrieve your information. With the right storage system, you could even allow other people to access the data, turning a personal project into a collaborative effort.
One issue that information experts, computer scientists and entrepreneurs debate is the concept of data ownership. Who owns the data stored in a cloud system? Does it belong to the client who originally saved the data to the hardware? Does it belong to the company that owns the physical equipment storing the data? What happens if a client goes out of business? Can a cloud storage host delete the former client’s data? Opinions vary on these issues.At its most basic level, a cloud storage system needs just one data server connected to the Internet. A client (e.g., a computer user subscribing to a cloud storage service) sends copies of files over the Internet to the data server, which then records the information. When the client wishes to retrieve the information, he or she accesses the data server through a Web-based interface. The server then either sends the files back to the client or allows the client to access and manipulate the files on the server itself.
Cloud storage systems generally rely on hundreds of data servers. Because computers occasionally require maintenance or repair, it’s important to store the same information on multiple machines. This is called redundancy. Without redundancy, a cloud storage system couldn’t ensure clients that they could access their information at any given time. Most systems store the same data on servers that use different power supplies. That way, clients can access their data even if one power supply fails.
Not all cloud storage clients are worried about running out of storage space. They use cloud storage as a way to create backups of data. If something happens to the client’s computer system, the data survives off-site. It’s a digital-age variation of “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
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