What Should Cloud Storage Software Do?: Page 2 of 2

Billing is another key factor, especially if this software is going to drive an external service. The ability to charge users by the capacity or bandwidth used and then be able to integrate that into an existing billing system is important since eventually you may want to actually make money with this service. In a down economy being profitable is back in style.

From a more infrastructural perspective, things like security and redundancy are a pre-requisite. One capability that is often missed is the software must have the ability to self-migrate or what I call a rolling architecture. We have all migrated one big array to another and I'm sure for most of us it was not a quick and easy process. Multiply that by 10X or 100X the capacity. Cloud platforms have to be flexible, you simply are not going to be able to easily migrate from one system to another. The software will have to support mixed nodes and allow newer technology to integrate seamlessly with older technology. This allows the storage system to age out older components gradually instead of all at once.

A fully enabled cloud storage system is more than a bunch of cheap disk connected to the internet. The software must take advantage of the fact that it is on the internet and make it more compelling than storage in your data center.