CloudTier Storage Tiering Filter Driver SDK

What is the CloudTier Storage Tiering SDK

The CloudTier Storage Tiering SDK is a Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) file system filter driver development kit. It is a data storage technique that automatically moves data between high-cost and low-cost storage media. It allows you to free up on-premise storage capacity transparently, by moving out cooler data to the cloud storage, thereby reducing capital and operational expenditures.

 The CloudTier Storage Tiering SDK provides you a simple and low-cost solution to integrate your on-premise storage to cloud storage infrastructure in a seamless, secure, and transparent fashion. There is no interruption to migrate your on-premise files to the remote cloud storage, so you don't need to change your existing applications and infrastructure. It uses the on-premises storage as a tier 0 storage (hot storage), uses the public cloud storage as a tier 1 storage (cold storage). So you can connect the cloud storage as a second tier. Your application can use the cloud storage just like the local storage without any changes. CloudTier Storage Tiering Filter Driver SDK

Understand The File System Filter Driver

A file system filter driver intercepts requests targeted at a file system or another file system filter driver. By intercepting the request before it reaches its intended target, the filter driver can extend or replace functionality provided by the original target of the request. File system filtering services are available through the filter manager in Windows. The Filter Manager provides a framework for developing File Systems and File System Filter Drivers without having to manage all the complexities of file I/O.

How Does The Storage Tiering Work

The storage tiering is a comprehensive technology to access the remote storage transparently. The CloudTier storage SDK integrates with the local file system. When an application accesses a stub file, the CloudTier Filter Driver will bring back the remote storage’s data back to the application or rehydrate the stub file as a normal physical file based on the recall policy.

A stub file looks and acts like a regular file, it has the same file attributes with the original physical file (file size, creation time, last write time, last access time), it also keeps the original file’s security. A stub file is a file with sparse file and reparse point attributes, your customized tag data can be embedded to the stub file. A stub file doesn’t take the storage space for the file data, it only keeps the meta data of the file.

The Use Cases of CloudTier Storage Tiering

Cloud storage tiering can be widely used in telecommunications, government, oil, medical and other industries.

Healthcare Data Archiving. Healthcare providers are increasingly required to retain patient medical record data for multi-year periods. Storage requirements for patient data can quickly escalate when the records include high resolution images and ultrasound content.

Business Policy Mandated Data Archiving. Companies can generate PB’s of data in the course of day to day operations and to meet legal compliance requirements. Archive Storage can work with Smart Archiving offerings from ISV’s to create a low cost, content archiving solution.

Digital Media Content Retention. Creators can generate PB’s worth of video and picture content that is used in the development of original digital media. Archive Storage gives creators a low-cost storage repository for original source content. File-level tiering makes it easy to shift from cold to hot storage should the need arise to use that content for another project.

Security/Public Safety data retention. As the number and sophistication of threats to personal and business safety continue to increase, so does the demand for video surveillance. Public and now private sector companies generate TB’s of surveillance footage daily in the course of protecting their citizens and assets. Archive Storage is a low-cost option for storing that data.