Absolutely, thank you Glen. I'm wondering at the moment about high-res images intended for delivery through an IIPImage server. If we store large volumes of these we'll definitely want plenty of space at low cost, but they need to be in, effectively, local storage, so that the server can access them as part of the file system and then stream them out as tiles to users in real time. I guess for this scenario block storage is actually what we need?
All the best, Jeremy Ottevanger Technical Web Manager Imperial War Museum Lambeth Road London SE1 6HZ -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Nate Solas Sent: 19 April 2013 15:47 To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Advice About Cloud Storage Great summary of the difference between block & object storage, thanks Glen! Nate On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:24 PM, My Tours <glen at mytoursapp.com> wrote: > >> > >> We are planning to use a cloud service to store large numbers of > >> hi-res > digital images for an online education platform. If any of you already > use cloud services I'd be very grateful for recommendations or advice > about what to look out for. > >> > >> Thank you, as always. > > snip, snip, snip... > > Background: Along with running My Tours where we store images and > audio clips on S3 I also work for Realestate.co.nz where we store > ~1.4TB of images and serve around 80GB of images a day to consumers. > This is currently stored on block storage at a local 'cloudy' > provider. We are currently in the process of selecting a vendor for > cloud file storage and at the moment Amazon s3 with a Fastly CDN is our > preferred option. > > On 19/04/2013, at 12:00 AM, mcn-l-request at mcn.edu wrote: > > > > We use Rackspace. They have a new part to their cloud offer, which > > I've > not yet tried but which sounds helpful if you have large storage needs > because it lets you buy what you need without scaling up the server as > a whole. Cloud Blocks, I think it's called. Ah yes, here it is: > > > > > http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/cloud-block-storage- > overview > > You have 2 basic types of cloud storage, object storage and block storage. > Block storage is similar to your normal hard disks you would find in > your computer or server. They 'look' just like a regular disk and > perform the same. They tend to be faster than object storage and fit > into traditional apps just like a normal disk would. > > Object storage is aimed at storing a large number of objects (images, > audio, backups, and other assets). It is not a traditional file system > in that you don't just copy files to a folder but use an API to put, > requests and delete files. > > Both types of storage can scale but object based storage (Cloud Files > from Rackspace and s3 from Amazon) is the right approach to storing > large numbers of hi-res images. > > Another type of storage that may be also be of interest is Amazon's > Glacier storage. For long term archival the price comes down to 1c/GB > a month and is a great replacement for tape backups and long term > storage that doesn't need to be accessed a lot. > > Amazon also hooks into a lot of other services such as the Amazon > storage gateway - http://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/). Worth > looking at depending on your needs. > > And also don't forget a CDN - This helps deliver the assets out to the > users as quickly as possible (s3 can be a little slow if you need fast > access to the assets). Again Amazon makes it easy with CloudFront > although in NZ we're looking at Fastly which has a local point of > presence and has a really nice interface. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This email message has been delivered safely and archived online by Mimecast. For more information please visit http://www.mimecast.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
