In the past two episodes of cloud storage 101 (ep1, ep2), we discussed what cloud storage is, what value it provides, and an overview of some of the challenges typically associated with cloud storage. In this episode, we’re going to look at how cloud gateway devices, also known as cloud on-ramp devices, can help make cloud storage a reality. In the spirit of intellectual honesty, we can’t make the bold generalization that cloud storage is applicable to any and every application. Quite the opposite, actually. Cloud storage is a wonderful fit for some applications, and for others, it simply isn’t. I tend to be an optimist, so I’m going to focus on how these devices can make cloud storage very useful, rather than on where it can’t.
So, what is a ‘cloud gateway device’, or a ‘cloud on-ramp device’?
Put simply, a cloud gateway device is a device deployed behind your firewall that acts as a useful intermediary between you (your application servers) and a cloud service. Typically, cloud gateway devices perform some function that improves performance, security, usability, or other aspects of the service. Several classes of cloud gateway products exist, and we’re going to focus on those that sit between your application servers and cloud storage services, i.e. cloud storage gateway devices.
Over the last year there are a handful of companies that have emerged with cloud storage gateway devices, StorSimple included. So what do these devices do? How do they make the cloud storage services useful? The following are general characteristics and functions of these devices, and why the functions matter.
1) They give your application servers familiar protocols to use for accessing storage, and natively speak the language of your cloud storage service so your applications don’t have to. This simplifies integration, because many in-house applications (for instance, Exchange, SharePoint), do not natively speak using RESTful APIs when accessing storage. They expect SCSI in its many forms (iSCSI, FC, FCoE).
2) They optimize transmission of data to and from the cloud to improve performance. Typically, this is accomplished through data deduplication, TCP optimization, compression, and other techniques, which A) minimize the amount of data traversing the wire and B) allow the WAN pipe to be utilized in the most efficient manner. Moving redundancy-eliminated blocks of data moves a tremendous amount of actual data.
3) They secure data being transferred over the network (data in motion), and the data while it is being stored on the cloud storage service (data at rest), generally using keys you supply, which are not shared with your cloud storage service provider. This means that your data is rendered practically useless to third parties that sniff your WAN, compromise your cloud storage service provider’s network or systems, steal your service provider’s hardware, or anyone that becomes the recipient of your data from your service provider through litigation.
4) They provide storage management functions, including volume management, provisioning, access control (i.e. LUN masking), snapshots, replication, and other functions. This allows you to manage the system as though you were managing an existing storage array, meaning simplified integration into existing processes, procedures, and data protection infrastructure.
Cloud storage gateway devices provide a lot of useful functions which help make cloud storage consumable by your traditional on-premises applications. Good candidates for such models include those that are centered around unstructured data – stored as such, or in any of its permutations (files, email, content repositories, collaboration systems, archives), as they tend to have a high degree of commonality within the data, and only a small portion of the data is really used by the applications and their users at any given point in time (let’s face it, the email never ceases to arrive, but I can only process so much of it in a given day).
Cloud storage gateway devices certainly do a lot more than this, and we feel that we have a very compelling solution for the applications that we’re focusing on. If you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to drop me an email at joel at storsimple dot com.
Cheers!
Joel
