Er.

Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
Topic: Cloud Storage & Cloud Standards: Overview, Storage as a service, Cloud storage
issues, Challenges, Standards
Topic-1: Cloud Storage
Cloud Storage is a service where data is remotely maintained, managed, and backed
up. The service is available to users over a network, which is usually the internet. It
allows the user to store files online so that the user can access them from any location
via the internet. The provider company makes them available to the user online by
keeping the uploaded files on an external server. This gives companies using cloud
storage services ease and convenience, but can potentially be costly.
Users should also be aware that backing up their data is still required when using
cloud storage services, because recovering data from cloud storage is much slower
than local backup.
Cloud storage 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.
Cloud storage is a model of networked enterprise storage where data is stored in
virtualized pools of storage which are generally hosted by third
parties. Hosting companies operate large data centers, and people who require their
data to be hosted buy or lease storage capacity from them.
The data center operators, in the background, virtualize the resources according to
the requirements of the customer and expose them as storage pools, which the
customers can themselves use to store files or data objects.
Physically, the resource may span across multiple servers and multiple locations. The
safety of the files depends upon the hosting companies, and on the applications that
leverage the cloud storage.
Cloud storage services may be accessed through a web service application
programming interface (API) or by applications that utilize the API, such as cloud
desktop storage, a cloud storage gateway or Web-
based content management systems.
Most cloud storage providers started providing users
with the convenience of on-the-go access to their
cloud sync folder from multiple mobile devices.
For some computer owners, finding enough storage
space to hold all the data they've acquired is a real
challenge. Some people invest in larger hard drives.
Others prefer external storage devices like thumb
drives or compact discs.
Desperate computer owners might delete entire
folders worth of old files in order to make space for
new information. But some are choosing to rely on a growing trend: cloud storage.
The facilities that house cloud storage systems are called data centers. 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.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
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.
Cloud storage is based on highly virtualized infrastructure and has the same
characteristics as cloud computing in terms of agility, scalability, elasticity and multi-
tenancy, and is available both off-premises and on-premises.
Cloud storage is:
o Made up of many distributed resources, but still acts as one - often referred to
as federated storage clouds
o Highly fault tolerant through redundancy and distribution of data
o Highly durable through the creation of versioned copies
o Typically eventually consistent with regard to data replicas

Types of Cloud Storage Solutions

Customers need to decide whether or not a cloud storage service, public or private, should
be used for a given data set and which cloud storage service class should be used before
deciding to migrate to cloud storage services.
Classic Data Center Storage Data set volumes configured as on-premise only do
not take advantage of a cloud storage service but rather only take advantage of tiered
storage system.
Private Cloud Storage Data set volumes configured in this mode take advantage of
tiered storage on-premise plus a private cloud storage service on-premise that is used
for data protection using a D2D Cloud Clone feature format compatible with public
clouds. This helps minimize data protection infrastructure and cost.
Federated Cloud Storage Data set volumes configured in this mode take advantage
of both on-premises tiered storage and capacity made available through a cloud
storage provider that is used for data protection. Cloud Clones are similar to
snapshots in that they are a point-in-time, consistent copy of a series of application-
related volumes. Whereas snapshots are typically mounted by a backup server and
written to virtual or physical tape, which is then shipped off-site for protection, Cloud
Clones on the other hand are stored persistently in the cloud.

Cloud storage requirements

True cloud storage is storage thats accessed directly across the Internet via Web services
APIs. These APIs utilize variations of the REST or SOAP interface that will eventually be
standardized and known as the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI).
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
Massive scalability: always increases positively as storage nodes are added
Not tied to geographic location (geographically aware)
Based on off-the-shelf components to minimize total cost of ownership (TCO)
Secure multi-tenancy : No unauthorized user or employee can ever read/write
someone elses data
High degree of data self-healing: Extremely low probabilities of data ever being lost,
corrupted or silently corrupted
Enduring data resiliency/permanence: Accessible online for years or decades,
searchable and capable of locking down data with immutability via WORM
Billed or licensed per usage with true pay-as-you-go
Nondisruptive tech refresh; i.e., no scheduled downtime ever

Examples of Cloud Storage

There are hundreds of cloud storage providers on the Web, and their numbers seem to
increase every day. Not only are there a lot of companies competing to provide storage,
but also the amount of storage each company offers to clients seems to grow regularly.
Google Docs allows users to upload documents, spreadsheets and presentations
to Google's data servers. Users can edit files using a Google application. Users can
also publish documents so that other people can read them or even make edits, which
means Google Docs is also an example of cloud computing.
Web e-mail providers like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail store e-mail messages on
their own servers. Users can access their e-mail from computers and other devices
connected to the Internet.
Sites like Flickr and Picasa host millions of digital photographs. Their users create
online photo albums by uploading pictures directly to the services' servers.

Some of the services listed above are free. Others charge a flat fee for a certain amount of
storage, and still others have a sliding scale depending on what the client needs. In general,
the price for online storage has fallen as more companies have entered the industry. Even
many of the companies that charge for digital storage offer at least a certain amount for free.

Topic-2: Issues
The two biggest concerns about cloud storage are reliability and security.

1. Security: Clients aren't likely to entrust their data to another company without a
guarantee that they'll be able to access their information whenever they want and no one
else will be able to get at it. To secure data, most systems use a combination of
techniques, including:
- Encryption, which means they use a complex algorithm to encode information. To
decode the encrypted files, a user needs the encryption key. While it's possible to
crack encrypted information, most hackers don't have access to the amount of
computer processing power they would need to decrypt information.
- Authentication processes, which require to create a user name and password.
- Authorization practices -- the client lists the people who are authorized to access
information stored on the cloud system. Many corporations have multiple levels of
authorization. For example, a front-line employee might have very limited access to
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
data stored on a cloud system, while the head of human resources might have
extensive access to files.
- Even with these protective measures in place, many people worry that data saved on a
remote storage system is vulnerable. There's always the possibility that a hacker will
find an electronic back door and access data.
- Hackers could also attempt to steal the physical machines on which data are stored. A
disgruntled employee could alter or destroy data using his or her authenticated user
name and password.
- Cloud storage companies invest a lot of money in security measures in order to limit
the possibility of data theft or corruption.

2. Reliability: An unstable cloud storage system is a liability. No one wants to save data to
a failure-prone system, nor do they want to trust a company that isn't financially stable.
While most cloud storage systems try to address this concern through redundancy
techniques, there's still the possibility that an entire system could crash and leave clients
with no way to access their saved data.

3. Attack surface area

- Outsourcing data storage increases the attack surface area. When data is distributed
it is stored at more locations increasing the risk of unauthorised physical access to
the data. For example, in cloud based architecture, data is replicated and moved
frequently so the risk of unauthorised data recovery increases dramatically. (e.g.
disposal of old equipment, reuse of drives, reallocation of storage space) The manner
that data is replicated depends on the service level a customer chooses and on the
service provided. Risk of unauthorized access to data can be mitigated through the
use of encryption, which can be applied to data as part of the storage service or by on-
premises equipment that encrypts data prior to uploading it to the cloud.
- The number of people with access to the data who could be compromised (i.e. bribed,
or coerced) increases dramatically. A single company might have a small team of
administrators, network engineers and technicians, but a cloud storage company will
have many customers and thousands of servers and therefore a much larger team of
technical staff with physical and electronic access to almost all of the data at the
entire facility or perhaps the entire company.
- Encryption keys that are kept by the service user, as opposed to the service provider
limit the access to data by service provider employees.
- It increases the number of networks over which the data travels. Instead of just a local
area network (LAN) or storage area network (SAN), data stored on a cloud requires a
WAN (wide area network) to connect them both.
- By sharing storage and networks with many other users/customers it is possible for
other customers to access your data. Sometimes because of erroneous actions, faulty
equipment, a bug and sometimes because of criminal intent. The risk of having data
read during transmission can be mitigated through encryption technology. Encryption
in transit protects data as it is being transmitted to and from the cloud service.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi

4. Supplier stability
- Companies are not permanent and the services and products they provide can
change. Outsourcing data storage to another company needs careful investigation and
nothing is ever certain.
- Contracts set in stone can be worthless when a company ceases to exist or its
circumstances change. Companies can:
a. Go bankrupt.
b. Expand and change their focus.
c. Be purchased by other larger companies.
d. Be purchased by a company headquartered in or move to a country that
negates compliance with export restrictions and thus necessitates a move.
e. Suffer an irrecoverable disaster.
5. Accessibility
- Performance for outsourced storage is likely to be lower than local storage, depending
on how much a customer is willing to spend for WAN bandwidth
- Reliability and availability depends on wide area network availability and on the level
of precautions taken by the service provider. Reliability should be based on hardware
as well as various algorithms used.
- If you have no internet connection, you have no access to your data.
6. Other concerns
- Piracy and copyright infringement may be enabled by sites that permit filesharing.
- The legal aspect, from a regulatory compliance standpoint, is of concern when storing
files domestically and especially internationally.

7. Usability: Be careful when using drag/drop to move a document into the cloud storage
folder. This will permanently move your document from its original folder to the cloud
storage location. Do a copy and paste instead of drag/drop if you want to retain the
documents original location in addition to moving a copy onto the cloud storage folder.
8. Bandwidth Several cloud storage services have a specific bandwidth allowance. If an
organization surpasses the given allowance, the additional charges could be significant.
However, some providers allow unlimited bandwidth. This is a factor that companies
should consider when looking at a cloud storage provider.
9. Software If you want to be able to manipulate your files locally through multiple
devices, you'll need to download the service on all devices.

Topic-3: Challenges
Security (Data Leakage)
o Security can be provided through using a combination of techniques:
Encryption
Authentication
Authorization
o Secure online storage and file sharing solutions are in high demand.
o With so many people using the internet to communicate and collaborate with
coworkers on a daily basis, often needing to share sensitive information and
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
documents, the need to make those interactions secure and protected is
paramount.
o Before you choose a cloud storage solution especially one of the free ones
being offered out there take a close look at the terms of service (TOS)
agreement.
o A few of the leading online storage solutions have led to scrutiny by privacy
right advocates wondering who effectively owns users data.
o All online storage is vulnerable to security breaches from increasingly more
sophisticated hackers. Even market leader Dropbox experienced a security
breach generating a discussion about the safety of cloud storage for the most
sensitive data.
o Dont risk the security of your data in order to save money, doing so may
actually end up costing you a lot more down the line.

Reliability
o Provided through Redundancy
Performance problem: Big data, slow networks
Mesh network inconsistency: Packets can take a variety of routes between the
servers and the storage. The mesh component is vulnerable to both packet loss and
capacity problems.
Slowdowns and brownouts: This is a problem at both Amazon and GoGrid, but it is
easier to see at Amazon. Their network, and consequently their storage, has variable
performance, with slow periods that are called brownouts.
Packet loss: This is related to the capacity problems as routers will throw away
packets when they are overloaded. However, the source of the packet loss seems to be
much harder to debug in a mesh network. These problems are seen on the
GoGridnetwork, and their attempts to diagnose it are often ineffectual.
Replication stoppages
Cost of cloud storage:
o The more you store, the more you pay. Cloud storage can be costly.
The more information you store in the cloud the more expensive it can get.
o So saving all of your information online especially if you are a digital media
buff wanting to back-up lots of photos, graphic files, and videos cloud storage
may not be the best solution for you.
Access:
o If its not in your sync folder, youre out of luck.
o Perhaps the biggest yet least talked-about limitation of most popular online
storage and file sharing solutions like Dropbox or SugarSync is the fact that
only the information you remember to sync ahead of time will be readily
available for remote access once youre away from your computer.
o So what if you havent saved all of the data, video, and files that you need in
these online storage solutions and you end up being away from your
computer? How can you remotely access your files then?
o Unlike the Cloud and Dropbox and other online storage options, TappIn gives
you secure, remote access (instead of storage) to their data no matter where it is
saved. With TappIn, you dont need to plan ahead what photo or music file you
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
may want to access once you leave the house. You can access it all anytime,
from any mobile device.
o However, if you (or your employers) still choose to store stuff in the cloud or in
other online storage solutions, TappIn is a great complementary solution. It is
compatible with most popular cloud storage options like Dropbox and
SugarSync. So you can access whats in multiple clouds, even if you forget to
sync.
Performance and data transfer rates become key issues as the distance between the
data and the user increases - which is what happens in cloud computing.
Bandwidth limitations Even unlimited bandwidth without solving the latency
problem will not improve the performance because it is the latency - or the chattiness
- of the protocols, plus the speed of light limitations that cause the end user
experience to be very poor. Not all data access patterns are well suited to the cloud,
particularly if there are large distances to cover. In such cases, bandwidth becomes
not only a challenge but a financial consideration. Bandwidth is a limiting factor when
accessing a public storage cloud, as they are accessed over the Internet. Primary
storage deduplication and compression, minimizes bandwidth consumption
dramatically while also improving performance.
Latency constraints Latency is the silent killer of application performance, both in
terms of response time and throughput. StorSimple takes advantage of parallelization,
persistent connections, and TCP optimizations to overcome latency and improve
performance
Manageability - Are concerned about being locked into their proprietary cloud storage
infrastructure and applications services. They dont have vendor independent tools or
industry standards to evaluate the applicability or measure the effectiveness of cloud
storage for their environment.
Interoperability/Protocol translation A serious concern exists today is: Most of
todays on-premises applications use block protocols. But Cloud storage protocols
predominantly speak only in the language of file protocols and both public and private
storage clouds are accessed via REST HTTP-based, or SOAP APIs. Since these
applications expect block access to storage, introducing a cloud storage system to the
application is like trying to have a conversation in Spanish when you only speak
English.

Topic-4: Advantages
1. Universal Access
2. Collaboration
3. Scalability
4. Economical
5. Reliability
6. 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
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
the right storage system, you could even allow other people to access the data, turning
a personal project into a collaborative effort.
7. Companies need only pay for the storage they actually use, typically an average of
consumption during a month. This does not mean that cloud storage is less
expensive, only that it incurs operating expenses rather than capital expenses.
8. Organizations can choose between off-premise and on-premise cloud storage options,
or a mixture of the two options, depending on relevant decision criteria that is
complementary to initial direct cost savings potential; for instance, continuity of
operations (COOP), disaster recovery (DR), security (PII, HIPAA, SARBOX, IA/CND),
and records retention laws, regulations, and policies.
9. Storage maintenance tasks, such as purchasing additional storage capacity, are
offloaded to the responsibility of a service provider.
10. Cloud storage provides users with immediate access to a broad range of resources and
applications hosted in the infrastructure of another organization via a web service
interface.
11. Cloud storage can be used for copying virtual machine images from the cloud to on-
premise locations or to import a virtual machine image from an on-premise location to
the cloud image library. In addition, cloud storage can be used to move virtual
machine images between user accounts or between data centers.[12]
12. Bandwidth You can avoid emailing files to individuals and instead send a web link
to recipients through your email.
13. Disaster Recovery It is highly recommended that businesses have an emergency
backup plan ready in the case of an emergency. Cloud storage can be used as a
backup plan by businesses by providing a second copy of important files. These files
are stored at a remote location and can be accessed through an internet connection.
14. Cost Savings Businesses and organizations can often reduce annual operating costs
by using cloud storage; cloud storage costs about 3 cents per gigabyte to store data
internally. Users can see additional cost savings because it does not require internal
power to store information remotely.

Topic-5: Storage as a service

The term Storage as a Service means that a third-party provider rents space on their
storage to end users who lack the budget or capital budget to pay for it on their own.
Also ideal when technical personnel are not available or have inadequate knowledge to
implement and maintain that storage infrastructure.
As data volumes grow and the ability to handle various file formats becomes more
complex, supporting efficient and cost-effective access to data can be increasingly
difficult, with users experiencing reduced performance and outages.
Traditionally approaches to storage entail capital investment and/or technical
resources to implement and maintain their own storage infrastructure. While
traditional solutions may offer simplicity, they can lack the crucial scalability to
expand the storage space to serve large end user communities.

Impact of failure to Act

The cost of delivering IT services to your organisation needs to be reduced without
impacting service levels.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
The reasons to centralise the storage estate have been indentified but resource/skill
constraints, risk and budgets are delaying or preventing the project.
Large capital expenditure required to procure new or additional storage.
Managing an in-house storage solution can be time consuming and costly.
Increased risks in disaster recovery with a complex in-house solution.
Allocating the right amount of data storage to the right users at the right time is an
ongoing challenge.
Multiple file storage devices create fragmentation and decreased storage and server
platform utilisation which results in a higher total cost of owner-ship (TCO).
Inability to provide services including dynamic storage tiering, backup and security.

Business Requirements
For any organisation, any size, your key objectives will be:
A scalable storage solution with automated data placement to help you efficiently
deliver content and information services.
Reduce the need for third-party products by using built-in versioning, compression
and reduplication.
Mitigate risks in disaster recovery, provide long-term retention for records and
enhance both business continuity and availability.
Unified management platform to help reduce; outages and storage management
labour demands and costs, advanced data replication for cost-effective business
continuity and disaster recovery.
Your organisation requires higher levels of service for critical applications that cannot
be achieved in house.
Ensure high availability and enable customers to access their data whenever they
need it.

Benefits of the Storage as a Service

Eliminate capital costs associated with buying, managing, hosting and maintaining
storage. The overall cost of ownership is significantly reduced and service levels
improve.
The typical risks and constraints around migrating to a central storage platform are
eliminated allowing you to achieve the benefits faster.
By moving critical data to the Storage platform, you can easily achieve 99.99% uptime
or higher without the typical price associated.
Your business can plan for change without the normal concerns over wasted
investments, secure in the knowledge that the service is always available.
You can mitigate risk and achieve higher levels of security without the cost or pain
associated with self certification server platform utilization and lower your total cost of
owner-ship (TCO).
Advanced data replication options, such as snapshot and mirroring, help enhance
your disaster recovery capabilities at reduced costs.

Topic-6: Possible solutions

 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
In the meantime, here's the four things, according to Rashbaum, you can do to keep your
data as safe and secure as possible:
1. Make sure it's clear in your contract that you own your own data.
It may seem obvious, but your contract needs to have a clause in it that says you will
still have the ability to access your data and transfer it if your cloud provider goes
bankrupt.
Also, ask for a notice provision which stipulates that your cloud provider must give you
a seven day warning before they declare bankruptcy so that you have ample time to get
your data off of their servers.
And figure out the successor liabilityyou need to know what happens if your provider
is bought out by another company.
2. Your service agreement needs to stipulate how your cloud provider will respond to
a subpoena.
It should be written into your contract what your service provider will do if they're
slapped with a subpoena or a civil discovery request.
Under to the Stored Communications Act, as the data owner--which you should be if
you followed step one--you legally must be notified any time your data is subpoenad,
but have it in writing with your provider just for good measure.
3. Your provider needs to make backups of your data and guarantee uptime.
Write into the contract how often your provider needs to make backups to your data
and to where.
It doesn't do you any good if it's on the same server chain in the same warehouse that
your primary cloud is stored on. If your provider loses your data, they may be liable for
damages, but it doesn't matter: your data is still gone and never coming back.
4. Ask for Cyber Risk insurance
Not all providers will offer it to you, but ask what their options are in regards to Cyber
Risk insurance.
It can protect against damages incurred from the inadvertent disclosures and theft of
confidential employee or client information.

Topic-7: Standards
Amazon S3
Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet.
It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon S3 provides
a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of
data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.
It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast,
inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web
sites.
The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to
developers.

Amazon S3 Functionality
Amazon S3 is intentionally built with a minimal feature set.
Write, read, and delete objects containing from 1 byte to 5 terabytes of data each. The
number of objects you can store is unlimited.
Each object is stored in a bucket and retrieved via a unique, developer-assigned key.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
A bucket can be stored in one of several Regions. You can choose a Region to optimize
for latency, minimize costs, or address regulatory requirements.
Objects stored in a Region never leave the Region unless you transfer them out. For
example, objects stored in the EU (Ireland) Region never leave the EU.
Authentication mechanisms are provided to ensure that data is kept secure from
unauthorized access. Objects can be made private or public, and rights can be
granted to specific users.
Options for secure data upload/download and encryption of data at rest are provided
for additional data protection.
Uses standards-based REST and SOAP interfaces designed to work with any Internet-
development toolkit.
Built to be flexible so that protocol or functional layers can easily be added. The
default download protocol is HTTP. A Bit Torrent protocol interface is provided to
lower costs for high-scale distribution.
Includes options for performing recurring and high volume deletions. For recurring
deletions, rules can be defined to remove sets of objects after a pre-defined time
period. For efficient one-time deletions, up to 1,000 objects can be deleted with a
single request.

Protecting Your Data

Data stored in Amazon S3 is secure by default; only bucket and object owners have
access to the Amazon S3 resources they create.
Amazon S3 supports multiple access control mechanisms, as well as encryption for
both secure transit and secure storage on disk.
With Amazon S3s data protection features, you can protect your data from both
logical and physical failures, guarding against data loss from unintended user
actions, application errors, and infrastructure failures.
For customers who must comply with regulatory standards such as PCI and HIPAA,
Amazon S3s data protection features can be used as part of an overall strategy to
achieve compliance.

Data Security Details

Amazon S3 supports several mechanisms that give you flexibility to control who can
access your data as well as how, when, and where they can access it.
Amazon S3 provides four different access control mechanisms: Identity and Access
Management (IAM) policies, Access Control Lists (ACLs), bucket policies, and query
string authentication.
IAM enables organizations with multiple employees to create and manage multiple
users under a single AWS account. With IAM policies, you can grant IAM users fine-
grained control to your Amazon S3 bucket or objects.
You can use ACLs to selectively add (grant) certain permissions on individual objects.
Amazon S3 Bucket Policies can be used to add or deny permissions across some or all
of the objects within a single bucket.
With Query string authentication, you have the ability to share Amazon S3 objects
through URLs that are valid for a predefined expiration time.
User can securely upload/download your data to Amazon S3 via the SSL encrypted
endpoints using the HTTPS protocol.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
Amazon S3 also provides multiple options for encryption of data at rest. Amazon S3
also supports logging of requests made against your Amazon S3 resources.

Data Durability and Reliability

Amazon S3 provides a highly durable storage infrastructure designed for mission-
critical and primary data storage.
Objects are redundantly stored on multiple devices across multiple facilities in an
Amazon S3 Region.
To help ensure durability, Amazon S3 PUT and COPY operations synchronously store
your data across multiple facilities before returning SUCCESS.
Once stored, Amazon S3 maintains the durability of your objects by quickly detecting
and repairing any lost redundancy.
Amazon S3 also regularly verifies the integrity of data stored using checksums. If
corruption is detected, it is repaired using redundant data.
In addition, Amazon S3 calculates checksums on all network traffic to detect
corruption of data packets when storing or retrieving data. Amazon S3s standard
storage is:
o Backed with the Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement.
o Designed to provide 99.999999999% durability and 99.99% availability of
objects over a given year.
o Designed to sustain the concurrent loss of data in two facilities.

Amazon S3 provides further protection via Versioning. You can use Versioning to
preserve, retrieve, and restore every version of every object stored in your Amazon S3
bucket.
This allows you to easily recover from both unintended user actions and application
failures.
By default, requests will retrieve the most recently written version.
Older versions of an object can be retrieved by specifying a version in the request.
Storage rates apply for every version stored.

Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS)

Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS) is a storage option within Amazon S3 that
enables customers to reduce their costs by storing non-critical, reproducible data at
lower levels of redundancy than Amazon S3s standard storage.
It provides a cost-effective, highly available solution for distributing or sharing content
that is durably stored elsewhere, or for storing thumbnails, transcoded media, or
other processed data that can be easily reproduced.

Content Storage and Distribution

Amazon S3 provides a highly durable and available store for a variety of content,
ranging from web applications to media files.
It allows you to offload your entire storage infrastructure onto the cloud, where you
can take advantage of Amazon S3s scalability and pay-as-you-go pricing to handle
your growing storage needs.
You can distribute your content directly from Amazon S3 or use Amazon S3 as an
origin store for pushing content to your Amazon Cloud Front edge locations.
 Er. Rohit Handa
Lecturer, CSE-IT Department
IBM-ICE Program, BUEST Baddi
For sharing content that is either easily reproduced or where youre storing an original
copy elsewhere, Amazon S3s Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS) feature provides a
compelling solution.

Storage for Data Analysis

Whether youre storing pharmaceutical data for analysis, financial data for
computation and pricing, or photo images for resizing, Amazon S3 is an ideal location
to store your original content.
You can then send this content to Amazon EC2 for computation, resizing, or other
large scale analytics without incurring any data transfer charges for moving the data
between the services.
You can then choose to store the resulting, reproducible content using Amazon S3s
Reduced Redundancy Storage feature
Backup, Archiving and Disaster Recovery
The Amazon S3 solution offers a highly durable, scalable, and secure solution for
backing up and archiving your critical data.
You can use Amazon S3s Versioning capability to provide even further protection for
your stored data.
If you have data sets of significant size, you can use AWS Import/Export to move large
amounts of data into and out of AWS with physical storage devices.
This is ideal for moving large quantities of data for periodic backups, or quickly
retrieving data for disaster recovery scenarios.

Google Drive
Collaboration: Users of Google Drive documents must have a Google Drive account.
All updates and editing by collaborators will be synced to Google Drive. For
documents that you have permission to access, you can receive notifications when
changes are made. You can share files with people by sending them a link to your file.
Mobile App Support: Google Drive has an Android app which gives you the ability to
share the files on your Android device using your Drive account. You can also share
any file from Drive with your phone contacts.
Storage: Google Drive offers 5GB of free storage.
Strengths: Has builtin document editor so that programs such as Microsoft Word are
not required to be installed on computer in order to edit document. Allows comments
to be left on any files stored.
Weaknesses: Sharing not as easy and intuitive as Dropboxmust use the Google
Drive web application to set it up. There is no ability to set preferences on syncing
speed.