===============
Storage focused
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.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   storage-focus-technical-considerations.rst
   storage-focus-operational-considerations.rst
   storage-focus-architecture.rst
   storage-focus-prescriptive-examples.rst

Cloud storage is a model of data storage that stores digital data in
logical pools and physical storage that spans across multiple servers
and locations. Cloud storage commonly refers to a hosted object storage
service, however the term also includes other types of data storage that
are available as a service, for example block storage.

Cloud storage runs on virtualized infrastructure and resembles broader
cloud computing in terms of accessible interfaces, elasticity,
scalability, multi-tenancy, and metered resources. You can use cloud
storage services from an off-premises service or deploy on-premises.

Cloud storage consists of many distributed, synonymous resources, which
are often referred to as integrated storage clouds. Cloud storage is
highly fault tolerant through redundancy and the distribution of data.
It is highly durable through the creation of versioned copies, and can
be consistent with regard to data replicas.

At large scale, management of data operations is a resource intensive
process for an organization. Hierarchical storage management (HSM)
systems and data grids help annotate and report a baseline data
valuation to make intelligent decisions and automate data decisions. HSM
enables automated tiering and movement, as well as orchestration of data
operations. A data grid is an architecture, or set of services evolving
technology, that brings together sets of services enabling users to
manage large data sets.

Example applications deployed with cloud storage characteristics:

*  Active archive, backups and hierarchical storage management.

*  General content storage and synchronization. An example of this is
   private dropbox.

*  Data analytics with parallel file systems.

*  Unstructured data store for services. For example, social media
   back-end storage.

*  Persistent block storage.

*  Operating system and application image store.

*  Media streaming.

*  Databases.

*  Content distribution.

*  Cloud storage peering.