SEMINAR REPORT

ON

Submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the award of the

Degree of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
COMPUTER SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

Submitted By Guided By:

NITISH PATRA Asst. Prof. ANITA BEHERA
Registration No. 2221316007

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

BHUBANESWAR ENGINEERING COLLEGE
BHUBANESWAR, ODISHA 752054
 Department of Computer Science and Engineering
BHUBANESWAR ENGINEERING COLLEGE
Bhubaneswar, Odisha 752054

Certificate
This is to certify that the seminar report entitled “CLOUD STORAGE”, submitted by NITISH
PATRA (Regd. No. 2221316007) in partial fulfillment of requirements for the award of the
degree of Bachelor in Technology in Computer Science and Engineering to the Bhubaneswar
Engineering College, Bhubaneswar (Affiliated to BPUT, Odisha & Approved by AICTE, New Delhi,
India) is a record of Bonafide research works carried out by him under our direct supervision and
guidance. The Result presented in this project has not been, to the best of my knowledge,
submitted to any other University/Institute for the award of any degree or diploma.

This seminar report in my opinion, has reached the standards fulfilling the requirement for the
award of the degree of Bachelor in Technology in accordance with regulation of the institute.

Head of the Department

(CSE)
Asst. Prof. Anita Behera

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 ACKNOWDEGEMENT

It is my privilege and solemn duty to express my deepest sense of gratitude to Asst. Prof. ANITA BEHERA of the
Department, under whose guidance I carried out this work. I am indebted, for her valuable supervision, heart
full cooperation and timely aid and advice till the completion of the thesis in spite of her pressing engagements.
I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to Asst. Prof. ANITA BEHERA, Coordinator of the Department
for encouragement and inspiration throughout my project work. I wish to record my sincere gratitude to our
respected Head of the Department, Asst. Prof. ANITA BEHERA for her constant support and encouragement in
preparation of this report.

I take this opportunity to express my hearty thanks to all those who helped me in the completion of my
Seminar report work. I am very grateful to the author of various articles on the Internet, for helping me
become aware of the research currently ongoing in this field.

I am very thankful to my parents for their constant support and love. Last, but not the least, I would like to
thank my classmates for their valuable comments, suggestions and unconditional support.

Nitish Patra

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 ABSTARCT

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components and
Recording media that retain digital data used for computing for some interval of time. Computer data
Storage provides one of the core functions of the modern computer, that of information retention. It
Is one of the fundamental components of all modern computers, and coupled with a central
Processing unit (CPU, a processor), implements the basic computer model used since the 1940s.

With the introduction of cloud storage and cloud servers, it has become easier than ever to backup
All our important computer files online. We are now given the flexibility of accessing all our files
From anywhere in the world, with the benefit of knowing that all our important pictures, videos,
Music, files, documents, as well as other programs and data are securely stored and available to us
24 hours a day 7 days a week.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction…………………………………….……………………6

1.1 What is cloud storage……….…………….…………………………..6

1.2 History…………..…………………………………….…………..…..7

1.3 How Does Cloud Storage Work?……..…………………………...…..7

Chapter 2 Benefits of cloud storage…………………………………..……..…. 8

2.1 Advantages………..……………………….…………………………. 8

2.2 cloud storage requirements……………….……………………...……9

2.3 Types of cloud storage…………………………….……………...…..9

2.4 Other storages………………………….……………………………...10

2.5 Five ways to store data………….………………….………………… 11

Chapter 3 Relatable Data……………………….……………………….……….12

3.1 Pros and Cons………..……………………….……………………...…. 12

3.2 Cloud storage for business……………….………………………………12

3.3 Security…………………………………………….……………...……..13

3.4 Backups…….………………………….………………………………. .14

3.5 Servers……………….………….………………….……………………14

3.6 Open source………………..…………………………………………….14

3.7 Diff between cloud storage & computing…………..……………....……16

3.8 Drawbacks…………..……..……………………………………….…….18

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 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is Cloud Storage:

Cloud storage is a cloud computing model that stores data on the Internet through a cloud
computing provider who manages and operates data storage as a service. It’s delivered on
demand with just-in-time capacity and costs, and eliminates buying and managing your own
data storage infrastructure.

This gives you agility, global scale and durability, with “anytime, anywhere” data access. Cloud
storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical
pools, said to be on "the cloud”.

The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical
environment is typically owned and managed by a hosting company.

These cloud storage providers are responsible for keeping the data available and accessible, and the
physical environment protected and running.

People and organisations buy or lease storage capacity from the providers to store user,
organisation, or application data.

Cloud storage services may be accessed through a collocated cloud computing service, 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.

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1.2 History

Cloud computing is believed to have been invented by Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider in the 1960s
with his work on ARPANET to connect people and data from anywhere at any time.

In 1983, CompuServe offered its consumer users a small amount of disk space that could be used to
store any files they chose to upload.

In 1994, AT&T launched Persona Link Services, an online platform for personal and business
communication and entrepreneurship. The storage was one of the first to be all web-based, and
referenced in their commercials as, "you can think of our electronic meeting place as the cloud.”

Amazon Web Services introduced their cloud storage service AWS S3 in 2006, and has gained
widespread recognition and adoption as the storage supplier to popular services such as SmugMug,
Dropbox, and Pinterest. In 2005, Box announced an online file sharing and personal cloud content
management service for businesses.

1.3 How Does Cloud Storage Work?

Cloud storage is purchased from a third party cloud vendor who owns and operates data storage
capacity and delivers it over the Internet in a pay-as-you-go model.

These cloud storage vendors manage capacity, security and durability to make data accessible to
your applications all around the world.

Applications access cloud storage through traditional storage protocols or directly via an API.

Many vendors offer complementary services designed to help collect, manage, secure and analyze
data at massive scale.

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 CHAPTER 2

BENEFITS OF CLOUD STORAGE

Storing data in the cloud lets IT departments transform three areas:

 Total Cost of Ownership: With cloud storage, there is no hardware to purchase, storage to
provision, or capital being used for "someday" scenarios. You can add or remove capacity on
demand, quickly change performance and retention characteristics, and only pay for storage that
you actually use. Less frequently accessed data can even be automatically moved to lower
cost tiers in accordance with audit-able rules, driving economies of scale.

 Time to Deployment: When development teams are ready to execute, infrastructure should
never slow them down. Cloud storage allows IT to quickly deliver the exact amount of
storage needed, right when it's needed. This allows IT to focus on solving complex
application problems instead of having to manage storage systems.

 Information Management: Centralizing storage in the cloud creates a tremendous leverage

p o i n t for new use cases. By using cloud storage lifecycle management policies, you can
perform powerful information management tasks including automated tiring or locking down
data in support of compliance requirements.

2.1 Advantages:
 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. Businesses using cloud storage can
cut their energy consumption by up to 70% making them a more green business.
 Organisations can choose between off-premises and on-premises 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

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 recovery (DR), security (PII, HIPAA, SARBOX, IA/CND), and records retention laws,
regulations, and policies.
 Storage availability and data protection is intrinsic to object storage architecture, so depending
on the application, the additional technology, effort and cost to add availability and protection
can be eliminated.
 Storage maintenance tasks, such as purchasing additional storage capacity, are offloaded to the
responsibility of a service provider.
 Cloud storage provides users with immediate access to a broad range of resources and
applications hosted in the infrastructure of another organisation via a web service interface.
 Cloud storage can be used for copying virtual machine images from the cloud to on-premises
locations or to import a virtual machine image from an on-premises location to the cloud image
library. In addition, cloud storage can be used to move virtual machine images between user
accounts or between data centres.
 Cloud storage can be used as natural disaster proof backup, as normally there are 2 or 3
different backup servers located in different places around the globe.
 Cloud storage can be mapped as a local drive with the WebDAV protocol. It can function as a
central file server for organisations with multiple office locations.

2.2 Cloud Storage Requirements:

Ensuring your company's critical data is safe, secure, and available when needed is essential. There
are several fundamental requirements when considering storing data in the cloud.

 Durability: Data should be redundantly stored, ideally across multiple facilities and multiple
devices in each facility. Natural disasters, human error, or mechanical faults should not result
in data loss.
 Availability: All data should be available when needed, but there is a difference between
production data and archives. The ideal cloud storage will deliver the right balance of retrieval
times and cost.
 Security: All data is ideally encrypted, both at rest and in transit. Permissions and access
controls should work just as well in the cloud as they do for on premises storage.

2.3 Types of Cloud Storage

There are three types of cloud data storage: object storage, file storage, and block storage. Each
offers their own advantages and have their own use cases:
 Object Storage Applications developed in the cloud often take advantage of object storage's
vast scalability and metadata characteristics. Object storage solutions like Amazon Simple
Storage Service (S3) are ideal for building modern applications from scratch that require scale
and flexibility, and can also be used to import existing data stores for analytics, backup, or
archive. Object storage differs from file and block storage in that it manages data as objects.
Each object includes the data in a file, its associated metadata, and an identifier. Objects store
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 data in the format it arrives in and makes it possible to customize metadata in ways that make
the data easier to access and analyze. Instead of being organized in files or folder hierarchies,
objects are kept in repositories that deliver virtually unlimited scalability. Since there is no
filing hierarchy and the metadata is customizable, object storage allows you to optimize storage
resources in a cost-effective way.
 File Storage - Some applications need to access shared files and require a file system. This
type of storage is often supported with a Network Attached Storage (NAS) server.The file
storage method saves data in the hierarchical file and folder structure with which most of us are
familiar. The data retains its format, whether residing in the storage system or in the client
where it originates, and the hierarchy makes it easier and more intuitive to find and retrieve
files when needed. File storage is commonly used for development platforms, home directories,
and repositories for video, audio, and other files. File storage solutions like Amazon Elastic
File System (EFS) are ideal for use cases like large content repositories, development
environments, media stores, or user home directories.
 Block storage traditionally employed in SANs, block storage is also common in cloud storage
environments. In this storage model, data is organized into large volumes called “blocks." Each
block represents a separate hard drive. Cloud storage providers use blocks to split large
amounts of data among multiple storage nodes. Block storage resources provide better
performance over a network thanks to low IO latency (the time it takes to complete a
connection between the system and client) and are especially suited to large databases and
applications. Used in the cloud, block storage scales easily to support the growth of your
organization’s databases and applications. Block storage would be useful if your website
captures large amounts of visitor data that needs to be stored.

2.4 Other Types of cloud storage:

There are three basic types: private, public and hybrid.
 Public storage clouds: In this model, you connect over the internet to a storage cloud that’s
maintained by a cloud provider and used by other companies. Providers typically make
services accessible from just about any device, including smartphones and desktops and let you
scale up and down as needed.
 Private cloud storage: Private cloud storage setups typically replicate the cloud model, but
they reside within your network, leveraging a physical server to create instances of virtual
servers to increase capacity. You can choose to take full control of an on-premise private cloud
or engage a cloud storage provider to build a dedicated private cloud that you can access with a
private connection. Organizations that might prefer private cloud storage include banks or retail
companies due to the private nature of the data they process and store.
 Hybrid cloud storage: This model combines elements of private and public clouds, giving
organizations a choice of which data to store in which cloud. For instance, highly regulated
data subject to strict archiving and replication requirements is usually more suited to a private
cloud environment, whereas less sensitive data (such as email that doesn’t contain business
secrets) can be stored in the public cloud. Some organizations use hybrid clouds to supplement
their internal storage networks with public cloud storage.

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2.5 Five Ways to Use Cloud Storage:
 Backup and Recovery: Backup and recovery is a critical part of ensuring data is protected and
accessible, but keeping up with increasing capacity requirements can be a constant challenge.
Cloud storage brings low cost, high durability, and extreme scale to backup and recovery
solutions. Embedded data management policies like Amazon S3 Object Lifecycle Management
can automatically migrate data to lower cost tiers based on frequency or timing settings, and
archival vaults can be created to help comply with legal or regulatory requirements. These
benefits allow for tremendous scale possibilities within industries such as financial services,
healthcare, and media that produce high volumes of data with long-term retention needs.

 Software Test and Development : Software test and development environments often requires
separate, independent, and duplicate storage environments to be built out, managed, and
decommissioned. In addition to the time required, the up-front capital costs required can be
extensive.
Some of the largest and most valuable companies in the world have created applications in
record time by leveraging the flexibility, performance, and low cost of cloud storage. Even the
simplest static websites can be improved for an amazingly low cost. Developers all over the
world are turning to pay-as-you go storage options that remove management and scale
headaches.

 Cloud Data Migration: The availability, durability, and cost benefits of cloud storage can be
very compelling to business owners, but traditional IT functional owners like storage, backup,
networking, security, and compliance administrators may have concerns around the realities of
transferring large amounts of data to the cloud. Cloud data migration services services such as
AWS Import/Export Snowball can simplify migrating storage into the cloud by addressing high
network costs, long transfer times, and security concerns.

 Compliance: Storing data in the cloud can raise concerns about regulation and compliance,
especially if this data is already stored in compliant storage systems. Cloud data compliance
controls like Amazon Glacier Vault Lock are designed to ensure that you can easily deploy and
enforce compliance controls on individual data vaults via a lockable policy. You can specify
controls such as Write Once Read Many (WORM) to lock the data from future edits. Using
audit log products like AWS Cloud Trail can help you ensure compliance and governance
objectives for your cloud-based storage and archival systems are being met.

2.6 Big Data and Data Lakes

Traditional on-premises storage solutions can be inconsistent in their cost, performance, and scalability
— especially over time. Big data projects demand large-scale, affordable, highly available, and secure
storage pools that are commonly referred to as data lakes. Data lakes built on object storage keep
information in its native form, and include rich metadata that allows selective extraction and use for
analysis. Cloud-based data lakes can sit at the Centre of all kinds data warehousing, processing, big
data and analytical engines, such as Amazon Redshift, Amazon RDS, Amazon EMR and Amazon
Dynamo DB to help you accomplish your next project in less time with more relevance.

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 Chapter 3
Relatable Data

3.1 Pros and cons: As with any other cloud-based technology, cloud storage offers some distinct
advantages. But it also raises some concerns for companies, primarily over security and administrative
control.

Pros: The pros of cloud storage include the following:

Off-site management: Your cloud provider assumes responsibility for maintaining and protecting the
stored data. This frees your staff from tasks associated with storage, such as procurement, installation,
administration, and maintenance. As such, your staff can focus on other priorities.

Quick implementation: Using a cloud service accelerates the process of setting up and adding to your
storage capabilities. With cloud storage, you can provision the service and start using it within hours or
days, depending on how much capacity is involved.
Cost-effective: As mentioned, you pay for the capacity you use. This allows your organization to treat
cloud storage costs as an ongoing operating expense instead of a capital expense with the associated
upfront investments and tax implications.
Scalability: Growth constraints are one of the most severe limitations of on-premise storage. With
cloud storage, you can scale up as much as you need. Capacity is virtually unlimited.
Business continuity: Storing data offsite supports business continuity in the event that a natural
disaster or terrorist attack cuts access to your premises.

Cons Cloud storage cons include the following:

Security: Security concerns are common with cloud-based services. Cloud storage providers try to
secure their infrastructure with up-to-date technologies and practices, but occasional breaches have
occurred, creating discomfort with users.
Administrative control: Being able to view your data, access it, and move it at will is another
common concern with cloud resources. Offloading maintenance and management to a third party
offers advantages but also can limit your control over your data.

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Latency: Delays in data transmission to and from the cloud can occur as a result of traffic congestion,
especially when you use shared public internet connections. However, companies can minimize
latency by increasing connection bandwidth.
Regulatory compliance: Certain industries, such as healthcare and finance, have to comply with strict
data privacy and archival regulations, which may prevent companies from using cloud storage for
certain types of files, such as medical and investment records. If you can, choose a cloud storage
provider that supports compliance with any industry regulations impacting your business.

3.2 Cloud storage for business

A variety of cloud storage services is available for just about every kind of business— anything from
sole proprietor to large enterprises.
If you run a small business, cloud storage could make sense, particularly if you don’t have the
resources or skills to manage storage yourself. Cloud storage can also help with budget planning by
making storage costs predictable, and it gives you the ability to scale as the business grows.
If you work at a larger enterprise (e.g., a manufacturing company, financial services, or a retail chain
with dozens of locations), you might need to transfer hundreds of gigabytes of data for storage on a
regular basis. In these cases, you should work with an established cloud storage provider that can
handle your volumes. In some cases, you may be able to negotiate custom deals with providers to get
the best value.

3.3 Security
Cloud storage security is a serious concern, especially if your organization handles sensitive data like
credit card information and medical records. You want assurances your data is protected from cyber
threats with the most up-to-date methods available. You will want layered security solutions that
include endpoint protection, content and email filtering and threat analysis, as well as best practices
that comprise regular updates and patches. And you need well-defined access and authentication
policies.

Most cloud storage providers offer baseline security measures that include access control, user
authentication, and data encryption. Ensuring these measures are in place is especially important when
the data in question involves confidential business files, personnel records, and intellectual property.
Data subject to regulatory compliance may require added protection, so you need to check that your
provider of choice complies with all applicable regulations.

Whenever data travels, it is vulnerable to security risks. You share the responsibility for securing data
headed for a storage cloud. Companies can minimise risks by encrypting data in motion and using
dedicated private connections (instead of the public internet) to connect with the cloud storage
provider.

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3.4 Backup
Data backup is as important as security. Businesses need to back up their data so they can access
copies of files and applications— and prevent interruptions to business—if data is lost due to
cyberattack, natural disaster, or human error.
Cloud-based data backup and recovery services have been popular from the early days of cloud based
solutions. Much like cloud storage itself, you access the service through the public internet or a private
connection.
Cloud backup and recovery services free organizations from the tasks involved in regularly replicating
critical business data to make it readily available should you ever need it in the wake of data loss
caused by a natural disaster, cyber-attack or unintentional user error. Cloud backup offers the same
advantages to businesses as storage—cost-effectiveness, scalability, and easy access. One of the most
attractive features of cloud backup is automation. Asking users to continually back up their own data
produces mixed results since some users always put it off or forget to do it. This creates a situation
where data loss is inevitable. With automated backups, you can decide how often to back up your data,
be it daily, hourly or whenever new data is introduced to your network.
Backing up data off-premise in a cloud offers an added advantage: distance. A building struck by a
natural disaster, terror attack, or some other calamity could lose its on-premise backup systems,
making it impossible to recover lost data. Off-premise backup provides insurance against such an
event.

3.5 Servers
Cloud storage servers are virtual servers—software-defined servers that emulate physical servers. A
physical server can host multiple virtual servers, making it easier to provide cloud-based storage
solutions to multiple customers. The use of virtual servers boosts efficiency because physical servers
otherwise typically operate below capacity, which means some of their processing power is wasted.
This approach is what enables cloud storage providers to offer pay-as-you-go cloud storage, and to
charge only for the storage capacity you consume. When your cloud storage servers are about to reach
capacity, the cloud provider spins up another server to add capacity—or makes it possible for you to
spin up an additional virtual machine on your own.

3.6 Open source

If you have the expertise to build your own virtual cloud servers, one of the options available to you is
open source cloud storage. Open source means the software used in the service is available to users
and developers to study, inspect, change and distribute.
Open source cloud storage is typically associated with Linux and other open source platforms that
provide the option to build your own storage server. Advantages of this approach include control over
administrative tasks and security.
Cost-effectiveness is another plus. While cloud-based storage providers give you virtually unlimited
capacity, it comes at a price. The more storage capacity you use, the higher the price gets. With open

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source, you can continue to scale capacity as long as you have the coding and engineering expertise to
develop and maintain a storage cloud.
Different open source cloud storage providers offer varying levels of functionality, so you should
compare features before deciding which service to use. Some of the functions available from open
source cloud storage services include the following:
 Syncing files between devices in multiple locations
 Two-factor authentication
 Auditing tools
 Data transfer encryption
 Password-protected sharing

Pricing
As mentioned, cloud storage helps companies cut costs by eliminating in-house storage infrastructure.
But cloud storage pricing models vary. Some cloud storage providers charge monthly the cost per
gigabyte, while others charge fees based on stored capacity. Fees vary widely; you may pay $1.99 or
$10 for 100 GB of storage monthly, based on the provider you choose. Additional fees for transferring
data from your network to the fees based on storage cloud are usually included in the overall service
price.
Providers may charge additional fees on top of the basic cost of storage and data transfer. For instance,
you may incur an extra fee every time you access data in the cloud to make changes or deletions, or to
move data from one place to another. The more of these actions you perform on a monthly basis, the
higher your costs will be. Even if the provider includes some base level of activity in the overall price,
you will incur extra charges if you exceed the allowable limit.

Providers may also factor the number of users accessing the data, how often users access data, and
how far the data has to travel into their charges. They may charge differently based on the types of
data stored and whether the data requires added levels of security for privacy purposes and regulatory
compliance.

Examples

Cloud storage services are available from dozens of providers to suit all needs, from those of
individual users to multinational organizations with thousands of locations. For instance, you can store
emails and passwords in the cloud, as well as files like spreadsheets and Word documents for sharing
and collaborating with other users. This capability makes it easier for users to work together on a
project, which explains while file transfer and sharing are among the most common uses of cloud
storage services.
Some services provide file management and syncing, ensuring that versions of the same files in
multiple locations are updated whenever someone changes them. You can also get file management
capability through cloud storage services. With it, you can organize documents, spreadsheets, and
other files as you see fit and make them accessible to other users. Cloud storage services also can

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handle media files, such as video and audio, as well as large volumes of database records that would
otherwise take up too much room inside your network.
Whatever your storage needs, you should have no trouble finding a cloud storage service to deliver the
capacity and functionality you need.

Cloud storage and IBM

IBM Cloud Storage offers a comprehensive suite of cloud storage services, including out-of-the-box
solutions, components to create your own storage solution, and standalone and secondary storage.

Benefits of IBM Cloud solutions include:

 Global reach
 Scalability
 Flexibility
 Simplicity

You also can take advantage of IBM’s automated data backup and recovery system, which is managed
through the IBM Cloud Backup WebCC browser utility. The system allows you to securely back up
data in one or more IBM cloud data centers around the world.
Storage software is predicted to overtake storage hardware by 2020, by which time it will need to
manage 40 zettabytes (40 sextillion bytes) of data. Check out IBM’s report “Hybrid storage for the
hybrid cloud.”

3.7 Difference between cloud storage and cloud computing

The terms “cloud storage” and “cloud computing” are oftentimes used interchangeably. One may be
tempted to believe they have the same meaning, but this is far from the truth. As much as cloud
computing and cloud storage have a lot in common and are derived from the same source (the cloud),
they are actually different concepts. We will examine the differences between these concepts in this
article.

When the average person first thinks about cloud storage, they will likely think about storing files,
(example: songs, videos, and applications) on a remote server to be retrieved from multiple devices
any time he or she needs them. This is correct! Cloud storage is essentially a system that allows you to
store data on the Internet, as you would save on a computer. Whether you’re talking about Google
Drive, DropBox, or iCloud, the definition of cloud storage remains the same. It enables you to upload
data through the Internet to cloud-based servers. Once you’ve stored your data on the cloud, you, or

16
any other person you give access to, can then go ahead and access it from multiple devices using the
Internet as a medium.

Businesses use cloud storage to store documents and share them with others. It helps in preserving
your important documents and files while at the same time giving you a better opportunity to
collaborate on a project with other people through data sharing. Personally, you can use it to store
media files and emails. It gives you almost unlimited data storage space. Also, it's cheaper and more
secure than traditional storage mediums. No wonder cloud storage is quickly replacing physical
storage systems!

You use cloud storage to save and keep data. Cloud computing, on the other hand, is used to work on
and complete specified projects. Cloud computing is linked with cloud storage in that you have 18 to
move data to the cloud (cloud storage) before you can make use of cloud computing systems. Once the
data is moved to the cloud, however, you or someone else can process it into useful material and send
it back to you. An example of Cloud Computing is Software as a Service (SaaS), where you input data
on software and the data is transformed remotely through a software interface without your computer
being involved.

Cloud computing is gaining ground in the digital and business world.

This is because of its numerous benefits. It ensures better collaboration, transparency, efficiency, and
innovation in its solutions. It also reduces barriers to communication and gives you access to a wider
audience, including customers and contractors.

Some distinguishing factors between cloud storage and cloud computing include:

1. Cloud computing requires higher processing power than cloud storage. Cloud storage, on the other
hand, needs more storage space.
2. Cloud computing is essentially targeted towards businesses. Cloud storage, on the other hand, is
utilized both for professional and personal reasons.
3. Cloud storage is simply a data storage and sharing medium, while cloud computing gives you the
ability to remotely work on and transform data (for example, coding an application remotely).

These are the essential differences between cloud storage and cloud computing systems. In as much as
they are interconnected, they are different concepts and shouldn’t be muddled up.

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3.8 Drawbacks:

1. Backups May Be Slower

Internet bandwidth and cloud storage max ingest speeds may be more limited than the local
network/disk. There’s also more communication latency involved. This is not normally an issue for
backups of file servers and workstations, as the larger, more time-consuming full backups can usually
run in the background for a longer period without any ill effects. After the initial full backup,
incremental backups serve to reduce the backup size and reduce backup times. Data compression and
deduplication help, too. But specialized applications like databases (for example, Microsoft SQL
Server and Exchange) can be affected by longer backup times. You want those applications backed up
during times of low activity and within your maintenance windows. In those cases, look to back up
critical applications locally for best speed and then sweep up the backups to the cloud. Some cloud
backup software will automate this process for you.

2. Restores May Be Slower

It’s all about internet bandwidth and rated cloud storage speed. Restoring an entire server may take
longer. But you might find file-level restores are just as fast. The important takeaway is to make sure
you can meet your contracted recovery time objectives (RTOs). If you can’t restore what’s needed in
the committed time, then consider performing hybrid backups on those critical servers and send your
backups to both local and cloud storage. Having two backup copies provides those critical workloads
with the benefit of fast local restores (with no reliance on internet and cloud storage vendor
availability), and the benefit of off-site, cloud storage protection for disaster recovery.

3. Higher Internet Utilization

If backups are running during business hours or times of heavy internet use, you may find internet-
related activity performance suffers. Internet bandwidth may need to be controlled. Look to set up
bandwidth utilization rules in your backup software (or limit via other network controlled means) to
ensure you don’t saturate your internet connection during times when access to the internet is needed
for other critical business activity.

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