Overview

In recent years, cloud storage is being increasingly used not only by small-scale systems, but also by large organizations for long-term data storage and requirements of BCP, etc.
FOBAS Cloud Storage Cache, a cloud storage gateway, ^®is a solution that seamlessly connects storage in the cloud to on-premise environments.

Features of the Solution

FOBAS is a gateway product for convenient and comfortable use of the cloud storage services such as AWS S3 and Microsoft Azure BLOB storage, as well as various object storage services such as Cloudian. Cloud storage services and object storage are available as a regular on-premise network storage and as file servers through the interfaces such as CIFS (Windows File Sharing), NFS, WebDAV, and iSCSI.

Basic Functionality

1. Offers a variety of service interfaces

Generally, for cloud storage, it is required to perform operations such as uploading and downloading from a dedicated webpage or to create a program that uses APIs. FOBAS CSC converts the dedicated APIs provided by cloud storage into file server interfaces (WebDAV, CIFS, NFS, FTP, etc.) commonly used within an enterprise and enables direct access to these cloud storages from File Explorer, Mac Finder, etc.
Provided Services and Interfaces

• WebDAV Connection
• CIFS Connection (Active Directory integration is possible)
• NFS Connection (LDAP integration is possible)
• FTP Connection
• iSCSI Connection

2. Good overall performance

Since cloud storage is used via the Internet, there are limitations owing to the Internet connection speed. Because of this, data input/output performance is inferior compared to storages such as NAS, which are used via an enterprise intranet. FOBAS CSC provides storage cache function and can be used as high-speed network storage. The cache is managed using the LRU algorithm, and frequently used data is always in the cache, thereby speeding up data access.

3. Strong Security

Many people are concerned about the security of cloud storage. FOBAS CSC divides data into blocks of a certain size, which is then encrypted using the AES method with 256-bit encryption keys, and can be distributed across multiple cloud storages. The keys are securely managed within FOBAS CSC and can be backed up to any device by the customer. Even if someone snoops on the contents of your cloud storage, they would not be able to decipher the contents.

4. High reliability and data maintainability

While some cloud storage services offer service level guarantee, some services do not. With FOBAS CSC, it is possible to store customer's data with redundancy. Even if there is a service disruption or extreme performance deterioration in one of the distributed cloud storages, customer's data can be restored from the redundant data and continued to be used.

5. Reduction in cloud storage usage costs

Cloud storage is generally charged based on the amount of data to be stored and downloaded. FOBAS CSC compresses customer's data and stores the data in cloud storage in blocks by eliminating duplication, thereby reducing the amount of data to be stored. Also, since the data in the cache is not downloaded, the amount of data downloaded is also effectively reduced.

6. Support for a wide variety of cloud and object storage

FOBAS CSC currently supports the following cloud storage services and object storage, and will continue to support various services and products in the future.

• Amazon Web Service S3 (Simple Storage Service)
• Nifty Cloud Storage
• Yahoo! Cloud Storage
• Clara Online Object Storage Service
• NTT Communications Biz Hosting Cloudn Object Storage
• FUJITSU Cloud IaaS Trusted Public S5
• Microsoft Azure BLOB Storage
• IDC Frontier Distributed Storage Services
• IIJ GIO Storage & Analysis
• GMO Cloud ALTUS Object Storage
• Cloudian Cloudian HyperStore
• Basho Riak CS
• Hadoop HDFS
• OpenStack Swift
• Cleversafe S3 Compatibility API

7. Snapshot

FOBAS CSC stores a history of all updates on the file system for a given period of time. Using our proprietary metadata storage technology, the status of the file system at any point in time can be referenced at any later time, provided that it is within the time period for which history is stored. This is called Just-In-Time-Snapshot of FOBAS CSC. The created snapshots can be referenced from the Windows environment as VSS snapshots.

High scalability

1. High scalability

Loosely coupled clusters provide high scalability. Performance can be improved flexibly and simply by adding cluster nodes as system users and load increase.

2. High availability

The automatic file system synchronization function of a loosely coupled cluster synchronizes data and settings to other cluster nodes with a delay of up to 10 minutes. In the event of a server failure, other cluster members can be used to prevent a total service outage. HA configuration of FOBAS CSC can be used when even the slightest loss of data is not acceptable.

3. Backup

FOBAS CSC automatically takes backups at five minute intervals and stores them redundantly using cloud storage and object storage functions. In the event of a server failure, these backups can be used for quick restoration with an RPO (Recovery Point Objective) of less than five minutes. Our proprietary metadata storage technology enables restoration with an RTO (Recovery Time Objective) of less than thirty minutes even for 10 TB file systems containing 10 million files.

Use Cases

Used to store backup data

For remote storage, using cloud storage instead of tape storage reduces management and procurement costs.

Distributed synchronous file servers

• Changes to files and folders at each location are automatically synchronized to all nodes that form the cluster.
• Logically identical file servers can be used across multiple locations.
• Logically consolidates file servers between headquarters and branch offices to achieve centralized management and operation

Offered formats

There is a physical appliance version and a virtual appliance version using virtual machine images.

Deployment flow