By Jerry Huang|Gladinet
There are more and more customers and potential partners that are installing OpenStack storage. We saw questions coming from the Gladinet forum and coming from support email (support@gladinet.com). Earlier this year, we saw Internap XIPCloud went live, and this quarter, we saw KT ucloud storage too. There are also quite a few customers setting up internal OpenStack storage and doing proof of concepts. These customers have contacted Gladinet for cloud storage access solutions.
For a larger (& longer) overview:
You have OpenStack swift storage? We can help deliver to customer’s desktop and filesales servers. You have a channel to reach out to these potential cloud storage customers? We have the solution for them to use!
The open source nature of the OpenStack project is fueling the adoption. Many of the customers contacted Gladinet with a very small OpenStack instance to start with.
During a typical sales call with OpenStack storage, we cover these 5 basic cloud storage use cases.
1. Backup to OpenStack Cloud Storage
Offsite backup is an important use case for cloud storage. Especially when you can bundle it together with your other service offerings such as email hosting, Outlook backup and etc.
2. Access to OpenStack Cloud Storage
Many customers want a simple access solution to cloud storage. They don’t want to learn a different UI so the best solution is no-extra User Interface. Using storage from Windows Explorer is a learned behavior for many business users. Mapping a drive to Windows Explorer allows the easiest integration with OpenStack Storage.
3. Synchronization PC-2-PC Over OpenStack Cloud Storage
Synchronization is a special form of backup. It is also a special form of access. The files and folders can be synchronized from PC to PC, with OpenStack storage as the conduit and repository.
4. Integrate OpenStack to On-Premise IT Infrastructure
Some bigger SMBs have existing On-Premise IT Infrastructure such as Windows 2008 File Server. They want to integrate Cloud Storage to their existing infrastructure in a seamless way.
5. Control and Share
Typical SMB wants to control who can access what on OpenStack Cloud Storage. Access Control and related features are highly sought after for Cloud Storage Use Case.
If you put the acronyms of Backup, Access, Synchronization, Integration, Control and Share together, they happen to be the BASICS of cloud storage use case.
Gladinet is promoting the BASIC cloud storage use case since many of the SMB users are looking for them. With OpenStack as the backend storage, the Gladinet solution can help customers fulfill these basic cloud storage use cases.
Please find Jerry’s article here .
