CACSS: Towards a Generic Cloud Storage Service

The advent of the cloud era has yielded new ways of storing, accessing and managing data. Cloud storage services enable the storage of data in an inexpensive, secure, fast, reliable and highly scalable manner over the internet. Although giant providers such as Amazon and Google have made a great success of their services, many enterprises and scientists are still unable to make the transition into the cloud environment due to often insurmountable issues of privacy, data protection and vendor lock-in. These issues demand that it be possible for anyone to setup or to build their own storage solutions that are independent of commercially available services. However, the question persists as to how to provide an effective cloud storage service with regards to system architecture, resource management mechanisms, data reliability and durability, as well as to provide proper pricing models. The aim of this research is to present an in-depth understanding and analysis of the key features of generic cloud storage services, and of how such services should be constructed and provided. This is achieved through the demonstration of design rationales and the implementation details of a real cloud storage system (CACSS). The method by which different technologies can be combined to provide a single excellent performance, highly scalable and reliable cloud storage system is also detailed. This research serves as a knowledge source for inexperienced cloud providers, giving them the capability of swiftly setting up their own cloud storage services.