The document provides an overview of cloud storage and usage monitoring, highlighting types of storage devices such as block, file, and object storage, along with notable cloud solutions like Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage. It discusses the importance of storage management techniques, data backup, and redundancy, as well as cloud usage monitoring tools that track resource utilization for optimization and cost control. Lastly, it covers different metrics for monitoring and the benefits of real-time vs historical usage analysis.

1. Device & Usage Monitor
Dr Hitesh Mohapatra
Associate Professor
School of Computer Engineering
KIIT University

2. Contents
• Storage Device:
• Types of storage devices in cloud (block storage, object storage)
• Cloud-based storage solutions (e.g., Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage)
• Storage management techniques
• Data backup and redundancy
• Usage Monitor:
• Role of usage monitoring in cloud
• Tools for cloud usage monitoring (AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor)
• Metrics tracked (CPU, memory, storage, network)
• Real-time vs historical usage monitoring
• Benefits for resource optimization and cost control

3. Storage Device: Definition
• Cloud storage is defined as a data
deposit model in which digital
information such as documents,
photos, videos and other forms of
media are stored on virtual or cloud
servers hosted by third parties.
• It allows you to transfer data on an
offsite storage system and access
them whenever needed. This article
delves into the basics of cloud storage.

4. Types of Digital Data

5. What is Cloud Storage?
• Cloud storage is a cloud computing model that allows users to save
important data or media files on remote, third-party servers.
• Users can access these servers at any time over the internet. Also
known as utility storage, cloud storage is maintained and operated
by a cloud-based service provider.
• From greater accessibility to data backup, cloud storage offers a host
of benefits. The most notable being large storage capacity and
minimal costs.
• Cloud storage delivers on-demand and eliminates the need to
purchase and manage your own data storage infrastructure. With
“anytime, anywhere” data access, this gives you agility, global scale
and durability.

6. Cont.
• Cloud storage works as a virtual data center. It offers end users
and applications virtual storage infrastructure that can be
scaled to the application’s requirements.
• It generally operates via a web-based API implemented
remotely through its interaction with in-house cloud storage
infrastructure.
• To ensure the constant availability of data, cloud storage
systems involve large numbers of data servers.
• Therefore, if a server requires maintenance or fails, the user can
be assured that the data has been moved elsewhere to ensure
availability.

7. Types of Cloud Storage
• Cloud services have made it possible for anyone to store digital
data and access it from anywhere.
• This means that cloud storage is essentially a virtual hard drive.
From saving important data such as word documents, and video
files, to accessing the cloud to process complex data and run
applications – cloud storage is a versatile system.
• Private cloud storage
• Public cloud storage
• Hybrid cloud storage
• Community cloud storage

8. Storage Devices
There are 3 types of storage systems in the Cloud as follows.
• Block-Based Storage System
• File-Based Storage System
• Object-Based Storage System

9. Block-Based Storage System
• Block-based storage in cloud computing is a type
of data storage where data is stored in fixed-
sized blocks (usually 512 bytes or multiples
thereof).
• Each block is treated as an individual storage
unit, and unlike file storage, block storage
doesn’t manage files or directories.
• It provides raw storage volumes that can be
attached to cloud-based virtual machines (VMs)
or servers, allowing them to use it like a
traditional hard drive.

10. Key Features/ Common Use Cases / Provider
• High Performance
• Flexibility
• Persistent Data
• Scalability
• Resilience and
Backup
• Databases
• Virtual Machines
• Applications
Requiring High
Throughput
• Amazon Elastic
Block Store (EBS)
• Google Cloud
Persistent Disks
• Microsoft Azure
Disk Storage

11. File-Based Storage System
• A file-based storage system (also known
as file-level storage or file storage) is a
type of data storage where data is stored
and organized as files within directories
and subdirectories, much like how files
are stored on a personal computer.
• Each file is treated as a complete entity
and accessed through a hierarchical file
system (e.g., NTFS, HFS+, or ext4).
• File storage is typically used for
unstructured data such as documents,
media files, and backups.

12. File-sharing methods
• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) model – A peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing model uses
peer-to-peer network. P2P enables client machines to directly share files
with each other over a network.
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) – FTP is a client-server protocol that
enables data transfer over a network. An FTP server and an FTP client
communicate with each other using TCP as the transport protocol.
• Distributed File System (DFS) – A distributed file system (DFS) is a file
system that is distributed across several hosts. A DFS can provide hosts
with direct access to the entire file system, while ensuring efficient
management and data security. Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is
an example of distributed file system.

13. Network Attached Storage (NAS)
• The standard client-server file-sharing protocols, such as NFS
and CIFS, enable the owner of a file to set the required type of
access, such as read-only or read-write, for a particular user or
group of users. Using this protocol, the clients can mount
remote file systems that are available on dedicated file servers.
So, for example if somebody shares a folder with you over the
network, once you are connected to the network, the shared
folder is ready to use. There is no need to format before
accessing it unlike in block storage. Shared file storage is often
referred to as network-attached storage (NAS) and uses
protocols such as NFS and SMB/CIFS to share storage.

14. NAS

15. Key Features/ Common Use Cases / Provider
• Hierarchical
Structure
• Accessibility via
Network Protocols
• Simplicity
• Locking
Mechanisms
• Less Granularity
• File Sharing and
Collaboration
• Unstructured Data
• Archiving
• Amazon Elastic File
System (EFS)
• Google Cloud
Filestore
• Azure Files

16. Object based Storage systems
for Cloud Services
• Object-based storage systems are a type of
data storage architecture designed to handle
vast amounts of unstructured data, such as
images, videos, backups, and large datasets.
• Unlike block and file storage, object storage
doesn’t store data in blocks or files, but rather
as objects.
• Each object contains the data itself, along with
metadata and a unique identifier, which
allows for easy retrieval, management, and
scalability.
• It is the most scalable form of storage, often
used in cloud environments to store massive
quantities of data.

17. Key Features/ Common Use Cases / Provider
• Data Stored as
Objects
• Flat Storage
Structure
• Scalability
• Access via
HTTP/HTTPS
• Durability and
Redundancy
• Cost-Effective
• Backup and
Archival
• Static Web Content
• Big Data and
Analytics
• Media Storage
• Amazon S3 (Simple
Storage Service)
• Google Cloud
Storage
• Microsoft Azure
Blob Storage

18. Storage Management
• The Key Storage Management Operations consists of Storage
Monitoring, Storage Alerting, and Storage Reporting.
• Storage Monitoring provides the performance and availability
status of various infrastructure components and services.
• It also helps to trigger alerts when thresholds are reached,
security policies are violated, and service performance deviates
from SLA.

19. Storage Monitoring
• Monitoring forms the basis for performing management
operations.
• Monitoring provides the performance and availability status of
various infrastructure components and services.
• It also helps to measure the utilization and consumption of
various storage infrastructure resources by the services.
• This measurement facilitates the metering of services, capacity
planning, forecasting, and optimal use of these resources.

20. Cont.
A storage infrastructure is primarily monitored for :
• Configuration Monitoring
• Availability Monitoring
• Capacity Monitoring
• Performance Monitoring
• Security Monitoring

21. Storage Alerting
• An alert is a system-to-user notification that provides
information about events or impending threats or issues.
Alerting of events is an integral part of monitoring.
• Alerting keeps administrators informed about the status of
various components and processes. For example, conditions
such as failure of power, storage drives, memory, switches, or
availability zone, which can impact the availability of services
and require immediate administrative attention.

22. Storage Reporting
• Like alerting, reporting is also associated with monitoring.
Reporting on a storage infrastructure involves keeping track and
gathering information from various components and processes
that are monitored.
• The gathered information is compiled to generate reports for
trend analysis, capacity planning, chargeback, performance,
and security breaches.

23. Data backup and redundancy
• One of the main feature the storage systems became intelligent is by using
the technique called RAID.
• A group of disk drives which combinedly referred as a disk array are very
expensive, have single point of failure and have limited IOPS.
• Most large data centers experience multiple disk drive failures each day
due to increase in capacity and decrease in performance.
• To overcome these limitations, 25 years ago a technique called RAID is
introduced for the smooth uninterrupted running of the data centers.
• A properly configured RAID will protect the data from failed disk drives and
improve I/O performance by parallelizing I/O across multiple drives.
Refer link for RAID PPT: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/raid-255852376/255852376

24. Contents
• Storage Device:
• Types of storage devices in cloud (block storage, object storage)
• Cloud-based storage solutions (e.g., Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage)
• Storage management techniques
• Data backup and redundancy
• Usage Monitor:
• Role of usage monitoring in cloud
• Tools for cloud usage monitoring (AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor)
• Metrics tracked (CPU, memory, storage, network)
• Real-time vs historical usage monitoring
• Benefits for resource optimization and cost control

25. Usage Monitor
• A cloud usage monitor is a tool that tracks and analyzes the
usage of cloud resources to optimize their utilization and
minimize costs.
• It provides visibility into resource usage patterns such as CPU
usage, memory usage, network traffic, and storage usage.
• It enables businesses to identify underutilized resources and
make the necessary adjustments to optimize performance
and reduce expenses.

26. Examples
• Some examples of cloud usage monitoring tools include CloudWatch
on Amazon Web Services, Azure Monitor on Microsoft Azure, and
Stackdriver on Google Cloud Platform.
• These tools allow businesses to track resource usage and
performance metrics, set alarms and notifications for specific
thresholds, and visualize data in customizable dashboards.

27. The cloud usage monitor process

28. Benefits
• A cloud usage monitor provides businesses with valuable
insights into their cloud resources, allowing them to make
data-driven decisions that improve efficiency and reduce
expenses.
• By optimizing resource usage, businesses can improve
performance and ensure they get the most value from their
cloud investments.
• Additionally, cloud usage monitoring can help businesses
avoid unexpected costs and performance issues by providing
early warnings of potential problems.

29. Types of Cloud Monitoring (Metrics)
The cloud has numerous moving components, and for top
performance, it’s critical to safeguard that everything comes
together seamlessly. This need has led to a variety of monitoring
techniques to fit the type of outcome that a user wants. The main
types of cloud monitoring are:
• Database monitoring
• Website monitoring
• Virtual network monitoring
• Cloud storage monitoring
• Virtual machine monitoring

30. Real-time vs Historical Usage Monitoring
Real-time Monitoring: Provides up-to-the-moment data on
the performance of cloud resources. It is vital for immediate
alerts and quick responses to problems as they arise.
• Example: If CPU usage spikes suddenly, real-time monitoring
would trigger an alert and potentially auto-scale the resources.
Historical Monitoring: Focuses on data collected over a longer
period, useful for analyzing trends, forecasting resource
needs, and conducting audits.
• Example: Analyzing monthly data to determine usage patterns and
optimize resources accordingly.

31. Benefits for Resource Optimization and Cost
Control
• Cost Control: By monitoring the usage of resources, organizations can
identify underutilized resources and scale down, thus reducing costs. Over-
provisioned resources lead to unnecessary expenses, which can be
optimized through monitoring.
• Resource Optimization: Ensures that the right number of resources are
allocated to match demand. Monitoring helps detect resource wastage or
the need for additional resources, ensuring optimal application
performance.
• Preventing Downtime: Continuous monitoring prevents downtime by
detecting issues before they escalate, which also helps maintain service
availability.
• Auto-scaling: Monitoring tools enable the automatic scaling of resources
based on predefined conditions, ensuring resources are allocated
efficiently.

32. Questions
Storage Device:
1. What are the different types of storage devices available in the cloud?
2. Can you explain the differences between block storage and object storage in cloud
environments?
3. How does Amazon S3 differ from Google Cloud Storage in terms of features and use cases?
4. What are some common storage management techniques used in cloud computing?
5. Why is data backup and redundancy important in cloud-based storage solutions?
6. How does cloud storage ensure high availability and disaster recovery for data?
Usage Monitor:
1. What is the role of usage monitoring in cloud computing?
2. Which cloud tools are commonly used for monitoring usage in cloud environments?
3. How does AWS CloudWatch differ from Azure Monitor in terms of capabilities?
4. What are the key metrics tracked in cloud usage monitoring (e.g., CPU, memory, storage,
network)?
5. How does real-time usage monitoring differ from historical usage monitoring?
6. What are the benefits of usage monitoring for resource optimization and cost control in cloud
environments?
7. In what ways can usage monitoring help prevent resource over-allocation and under-utilization?