Object storage has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Indeed, it has become the foundation data storage layer for much of the cloud and for many of the very popular services that have evolved there, from Facebook to Dropbox and pretty much everything in between.
However, it has also introduced – unnecessarily and dangerously, some would argue – an extra layer of complexity into storage planning. Its formal definition – that it is a storage architecture which manages data as objects, rather than managing it as either files or blocks – has left many people confused and wary.
In many ways, it could have been more productive and less confusing all round had the IT industry called the new concept an “enhanced file system”, or something along those lines. After all, what is an object but a song, a photo or perhaps a database? And weren't those merely files before, so why all the extra complexity?
The answer lies in the object metadata – the additional information that tells you useful things about the data. So while there is still in most cases a one-to-one mapping between objects and files, with each object also being a file, that isn't always true. More importantly, an object is not just a file, and it can be much much more than that.
Read More : http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Object-storage-Cloud-vs-in-house
However, it has also introduced – unnecessarily and dangerously, some would argue – an extra layer of complexity into storage planning. Its formal definition – that it is a storage architecture which manages data as objects, rather than managing it as either files or blocks – has left many people confused and wary.
In many ways, it could have been more productive and less confusing all round had the IT industry called the new concept an “enhanced file system”, or something along those lines. After all, what is an object but a song, a photo or perhaps a database? And weren't those merely files before, so why all the extra complexity?
The answer lies in the object metadata – the additional information that tells you useful things about the data. So while there is still in most cases a one-to-one mapping between objects and files, with each object also being a file, that isn't always true. More importantly, an object is not just a file, and it can be much much more than that.
Read More : http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Object-storage-Cloud-vs-in-house
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