Glossary

Cloud servers storage read throughput-benchmark

Since we are being asked all the time what kind storage performance can we get from different cloud infrastructure providers we run a little test. Following chart is based on simple " hdparm -t" command allowing us to get a glimpse on read performance of different devices. We checked Amazon EC2 Elastic storage as well as instance store (for explanation about AWS storage options click here ), both local and NAS storage options from Softlayer, Linode and Hetzner. Amazon instance store is the fastest storage option in our test but it is being cleared on restarts making it impossible to use for persistent operations. Softlayer on the other hand demonstrated very good performance on both local storage (persistent) and NAS being more then twice faster then Amazon EBS. Great performance from Linode and low end Hetzner being just a bit faster them Amazon. Following is a graph with results. If you have any questions or suggestions

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Amazon AWS EC2 storage options

 

You can connect different storage types to Amazon EC2 instances, two of them provided naively by Amazon platform and the rest are either provided by external sources or tweaks.  In any EC2 instance (except micro) you have instance storage included in a package. You can also use elastic block storage (EBS) and have an option connecting different 3rd party storage over the network.
 
Instance storage is a fast non-persistent storage provided by Amazon. It means it will revert to it`s original state after any system shutdown, erasing any changes you have applied to the file-system. It is very useful for running “dumb” servers that do not store data locally or as an additional storage for temporary files.
 
Elastic block storage (EBS) is a persistent storage provided by Amazon. All and any data stored on it is available after instance shutdown and can be manipulated with on device level. For example you can detach an EBS volume from one instance and attach it to another. However EBS can not be attached to more then once instance at the same time.
 
Using S3 as a file system. S3 is a storage infrastructure provided by Amazon as a service, it is not a part of EC2 (Elastic cloud) but can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere at any time. Because S3 infrastructure is fully managed and scaled by Amazon it is very useful for large scale web projects, backup media and large volume data transfers. Using S3 as a file system is done via FUSE in Linux or as a mapped network drive in MS Windows. We are providing a tutorial on Linux implementation of S3 as a file system in our systems blog.
 
There are also few companies out there providing iSCSI storage arrays for AWS, one of them is Zadara storage, company providing Virtual Private Storage Arrays and currently in beta stage. iSCSI as any other network attached storage systems will incorporate persistence and availability of EBS at much faster speed.
 

What is IaaS ( infrastructure as a service)

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) allows a third-party to house the equipment that includes storage, servers and other networking elements, outsourcing completely all the issues related to infrastructure management. The third-party owns the equipment and has responsibility of maintaining and housing it, while ensuring full functionality.

Main characteristic that makes IaaS useful is dynamic scaling, as an IaaS user you are free from traditional constrains of capacity planning - hardware making it easier and faster  to deploy needed infrastructure and cutting costs by eliminating payment for non used resources.

IaaS comes in different types, such as Public and Hybrid Cloud and are supplied by different providers. You can find more information on IaaS types here and we have also short IaaS providers comparison page, both being constantly updated.

   

IaaS types

We are adding more information about clouds in general. Below are some definitions for better understanding IaaS concepts.

Public Cloud. The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large
industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.

Private Cloud. The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for a single organization. It
may be managed by the organization or a third party, and may exist on-premises or off premises.

Community Cloud. This cloud type is an infrastructure shared by several organizations and
supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security
requirements, policy, or compliance considerations). It may be managed by the
organizations or a third party and may exist on-premises or off-premises.

Hybrid Cloud consists of two or more infrastructure types that can be clouds (private,
community, or public) or cloud and physical. Both types are bound together to provide single scalable infrastructure.

You can also visit our IaaS providers comparison page (constantly updated)

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