Federated Cloud Storage System for Unified Data Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
End users face data management challenges when storing data across multiple cloud storage providers, as they need to maintain different login credentials and lack a central point to view and manage their data holistically, leading to inefficiencies in storage and retrieval processes.
Innovation Solution
A federated cloud storage system that allows users to attach multiple cloud-based user storages to a central management system, enabling unified access, management, and organization of data across different cloud providers through a single interface, using metadata to track file locations and credentials, and allowing seamless file operations like reading, writing, and deleting.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users store data across multiple cloud storage providers to increase storage capacity and organize data by security preferences, then data storage flexibility and security are improved, but data management complexity and time required to access/manage data increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a federated cloud storage system that acts as an intermediary layer between users and multiple cloud storage providers. This system provides a unified interface and abstraction layer, allowing users to manage data across different providers without directly interacting with each provider's complex authentication and management systems. The intermediary handles credential management, data location tracking, and coordinated operations across providers.
Solution Approach 2:
The federated cloud storage system implements a universal interface that works across multiple cloud storage providers simultaneously. It provides multi-functional capabilities including unified authentication, cross-provider data search, centralized management controls, and coordinated data operations. This universal system eliminates the need for users to learn and manage different interfaces for each provider.
2Reliability
If users establish multiple accounts with different cloud storage providers to meet storage requirements and security preferences, then storage capacity and security are improved, but the need to maintain multiple login credentials and access points increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple cloud storage accounts and providers into a single federated access point. Users authenticate once through the federated system, which then manages access to multiple underlying providers. This combining approach maintains the security benefits of using multiple providers while consolidating access credentials and simplifying the user interface to a single point of interaction.
3Productivity
If users manually download and upload data between cloud storage providers to manage storage needs, then data portability is maintained, but time consumption and operational complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The federated cloud storage system performs preliminary actions by pre-establishing connections and credentials with multiple cloud storage providers. It proactively monitors storage capacity across providers and can automatically identify suitable destination providers before data migration is needed. The system prepares data transfer pathways in advance, so when users need to move or manage data, the transfers can begin immediately without manual setup or authentication steps.
Data Source
AI summary
User storage is attached to a central storage management system when the central storage management system receives a request to attach a cloud-based user storage thereto. The central storage management system accesses the cloud-based user storage and determines a set of objects stored therein. For each object in the set of objects, the storage management system stores corresponding metadata therein.