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Caching or Tiering for Your Cloud Storage? Does It Matter?

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August 08, 2011

Caching or Tiering for Your Cloud Storage? Does It Matter?

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor


Cloud storage leader StorSimple recently posted a blog entry on its website addressing the difference between caching and tiering.


If you’re using a cloud storage gateway or on-ramp device – such as, say, StorSimple – you may think that all devices are the same. According to the blog post, however, you’d be wrong. “There are a number of fundamental differences in the architecture used by these devices that may not be evident upon first glance,” but show up in undesirable behavior or unwanted complexity, according to the entry.

Caching, as the blog explains it, is retaining a copy of information in a smaller, faster place.  Your processor does it, the controller of your traditional storage system does it, Google (News - Alert) does it for the Web pages you search. Done correctly it’s a wonderfully efficient tactic. But it’s not always appropriate for cloud storage, as the blog explains. There are two methods of caching; one sacrifices a bit of coherence for performance, and the other is a bit slower but guaranteed to be accurate.

But basically with caching, the cloud storage repository is considered your terminal storage.  With tiering, however, as the blog explains, “the cloud storage service is nothing more than another tier, and the cloud storage gateway is your primary storage.”

This means the data is organized according to information lifecycle management or hierarchical storage management without compromising either performance or coherency. StorSimple believes in tiering, and has even developed an algorithm they patented, called "Weighted Storage Layout" which as they explain, “optimizes storage for the most important data – the working set – using integrated storage right within our appliance.”

Last month TMCnet reported that StorSimple noted one major challenge IT organizations face as far as protecting their data is the fact that many legacy technologies weren’t designed to handle protecting data “in a unified, cost-effective manner at scale.”  

As the company’s officials contend, “Most backups start as on-array snapshots (high cost, short lifespan) and meander through virtual tape libraries (VTL), deduplication, encryption, and physical tape before finally finding their resting place in an off-site vault.”

Bottom line: Huge headache for IT.  

 

Want to learn more about cloud communications? Then be sure to attend the Cloud Communications Summit, collocated with TMC’s (News - Alert) ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. The Cloud Communications Summit will address a growing need of businesses to integrate and leverage cloud based communications applications, process enhancement techniques, and network based communications interfaces and architectures. To register, click here.


David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin







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