To Cloud Manage or Not to Cloud Manage
A cloud is a form of data storage, which is a collection of servers, usually in a decentralized zone accessible through the Internet. Cloud storage is the service the cloud owners provide to Internet users such as individuals, businesses, and corporations to store their data on their storage devices. What makes the cloud interesting is there are many kinds of enterprises that all offer the same service and the cloud is a term used to take into consideration all of these data centers. These cloud data storage providers collectively share resources among one another, so that changing from one to another is seamless. However, each service sells its storage at different prices according to the quality and type of storage being sold or rented.
Cloud Management
Cloud management, the managing of cloud space in a cloud service, is all about allocating or reducing cloud storage space on a particular cloud service. Actually, cloud management software like ParkMyCloud software, or IT management companies like Quest, are businesses where persons can log into their cloud management software and purchase or re-allocate cloud storage from one service to another. The management of cloud storage has many advantages and a few disadvantages.
Advantages of Cloud Management
The first benefit of cloud management is savings to the business using the service. Cloud services purchase almost an infinite capacity to store large data files. Since cloud services share capacity, it is hard to get an exact number. To give an example of Google® in their capacity to store data, Google's YouTube stores about 11.1996994 terabytes/hour on its servers. A terabyte is 1000 gigabytes. To make a long story short, Google has been storing videos for over 15 years which is an estimated 1 sextillion gigabytes of data, which is equal to this many trillion hours of data: 1000000000. This large capacity to hold large data files, called big data, is a great advantage for large corporations who would be using much computing power to store this data. Thirdly, the purveyors of cloud storage backup this data and insure it against loss. This is another burden lifted for large corporations who would encrypt their data against hackers and the like.
How Much Storage is Needed
Another example to get things clear. Google web crawler that is constantly crawling the web for new content also has to retrieve, categorize, index, and make it available to web searchers daily. The crawler uses about 850 terabytes of storage, while Google Analytics, that analyzes the same data for website activity and the like, uses an estimated 220 terabytes. In a recent report, a journalist said Google Earth uses about 70.5 terabytes of storage. This is where most of the computing power is allocated for Google. Personalized web searches are only about 4 terabytes. Each person's searches are stored in a table and can be retrieved by Google, which traces the users specific ID.
Importance of Cloud Management
Cloud management is important because when a corporation is using so much data storage space, maybe some of that storage space becomes redundant and files are erased from the storage, which leaves open space to store new material. Or the data is inactive like old promotions, old sales promotions, and unused pictures, reports, etc. A great potential of storage is not being used but is being charged to the user. Basically, a cloud manager can log in his cloud management software and check the cloud health of his storage, as mentioned above, and either archive the materials in this space, reallocate the storage, or deactivates this space so the company or entity is no longer being charged for this space. In response, the cloud service will purge that space and make it available for new uses.
Cloud Management In the Future
The demand for cloud storage from 2009-2019 has risen dramatically. Recent statistics have shown a dramatic increase in demand in exabytes. Except for the first year, where supply equaled demand, every other year has shown demand outrunning supply. Demand for years 2009 (400 exabytes), 2015 (8,100 exabytes), 2018 (14,800 exabytes), 2020 (42,700 exabytes), while supply falls very low the demand for the same time. Supply for 2010-2020: 2010 (600 exabytes), 2015 (6,900 exabytes), 2018 (14,800 exabytes), 2020 (24.800 exabytes). With this promise of greater and greater demand for cloud storage in the foreseeable future, cloud management will take on greater importance to more and more companies needing storage.
