Cloud storage:

It serves as optional feature on the internet in storing high amount of data via a cloud storage provider application or software. It gives you command when there is need to store the data and provides you storage space and services. (2)  Cloud storage allows you to access your data it stores from any part of the world and you can use it as your pocket storage device via internet.

The cloud storage providers are the third party operators and anyone can use their services by paying the charges. As the charges increases, there will be increase in the storage facility and modification in the cloud storage capacity. The Services of cloud storage is made available by two ways; one is API and other is the general storage facilities.

Benefits of Cloud Storage:

On the internet it is a big weapon for all the information technology stakeholders to fight and be successful in providing best quality services and satisfy their customers by fulfilling the customer needs. Customer of modern day requires a lot from the service provider and it is the responsibility of the service giver to be on the expectations or go beyond that. According to the IT categorization, there are three main ways by which the cloud storage is beneficial and these are as follow:

  • Total Cost of ownership: Total cost of ownership involves only the space and storage you need on spot and it will be provided to you in a timely manner when you pay for it. You can remove or add the storage as per your requirements. In other words, you just pay what you use through cloud storage.
  • Time to Deployment: There will be no delay while proceeding with your data and when the organizers use the service, the cloud storage will never collapse or create disturbance. Rather it will quickly process the data and deliver to the destination where it is required. This encourages the customers to use the cloud storage and solve their issues of less storage by the cloud storage availability.
  • Information Management: As you keep on using the cloud storage facility, the provider is most likely to provide you a discount on information management or other service that they provide you. As you become the reliable customer for them the amount of benefits will increase.

Requirement for cloud storage:

As there are so many benefits of cloud storage, there is also the eligibility criteria that enables the cloud storage to be secure enough to save the critical data of the company and guard the documents that are confidential. Before using or trusting the cloud storage, you must keep in mind some basics such as:

Durability: Data must be protected well enough in multiple spaces with the back-ups so as with the human mismanagement, the data should never be lost. Cloud storage must have this facility to save data for long time.

Availability: Data that is stored must be available on the time when client requires, although there is some difference while having data in cloud or as archives but there should be fast processing and adjustment of data when needed.

Security: the most important factor that must be the first priority of the cloud storage is to make sure the data will be secure and not shareable with any other party even mistakenly. There must be specific permission to responsible person against some specific number that allow only that person to access and analyze the data when required.

Some types of Cloud storage:

There are generally three purposeful types of the cloud storage these are mentioned below:

  1. Object Storage: Most of the IT- applications that are developed by different people or companies are stored in the cloud storage as an object, because they are continuously working on it to make changes and modifications in real-time. The big example of amazon simple storage (S3) is that it can be useful while in backing-up analysis and archiving the data.
  2. File Storage: in saving of data, some storing applications need the complete data in the file format or system this type of software is useful under the mechanism of Network Attached Storage (NAS) server. The well-developed system of Amazon Elastic File System are for user-friendly, storing media files, large topic content writings, home directories and more.
  3. Block Storage: For saving the database system and ERP large system of different organization on the internet, will demand compatible and heavy storage availability factor. In order to meet the services for them, cloud storage comes up with the block storage mechanism in which Direct-Attached storage (DAN) or Storage Area Network (SAN) uses the block based cloud with different virtual connectivity servers with high performing workload back-ups that never slow down the data accessing.

 Cloud Storage providers (1):

As mentioned above about the cloud storage compatibility and effectiveness some of the potential providers for the cloud storage are as follow:

  • Amazon Cloud drive: this is best in the business of the cloud storage among the internet cloud storage market with best rates and packages such as initial 5GB will be free above this, $10 for 20GB per year, $25 for 50GB per year maximum of $100 for the 500GB data availability. Data is encrypted by 28-bit RC4.
  • Apple iCloud: the price package of iCloud starts from 15GB, 25GB, and 50GB in $20, $40 and $100 respectively. It gives the 128-bit AES encryption and authenticated services.
  • Bitcasa: the charge of this provider is $10 for 1TB and $99 for 5TB on monthly basis and unlimited data availability at $999 per month with the security encryption of 256-bit enterprise grading.
  • Box: the ranges of box cloud storage generally low and it will give 10GB free for the first time user and exceed limit of this storage will have to pay $5 per month for 100GB. This is also very secure with the encryption of 256-bit.

References:

  1. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2013/11/cloud-storage-services-comparison/index.htm
  2. https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-storage/