Unified, Petabyte-Scale Storage Across Digital Media Workflows

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Unified, Petabyte-Scale Storage Across Digital Media Workflows UNIFIED, PETABYTE-SCALE STORAGE ACROSS DIGITAL MEDIA WORKFLOWS The Scality RING for Digital Media is a massively scalable software-defined storage solution unifying workflows from creation through production, origination and distribution. For content owners and distributors, Scality software manages petabyte-scale archives and unleashes the power of low cost commodity servers. SCALITY RING — SCALE OUT SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGE FOR DIGITAL MEDIA CONSUMERS BROADCAST nPVR STREAMS RECORDING JITP SCALITY RING PROVIDES: • High Bandwidth: 56 GB/s per rack, supporting an unlimited number of racks • Unlimited Scalability, supporting billions of files, allowing content owners and distributors to manage large catalogs of titles encoded in many formats • Class-Leading TCO, through the use of inexpensive hardware and elastic storage. Users only pay for the storage they actually consume. Scality’s advanced, cost-efficient data protection typically requires only 50% of the storage hardware required by competing systems. • Easy Integration, enabling applications to run without modification thanks to Scality’s support for common Internet and file access protocols and industry standards such as OpenStack • Peace of Mind, as valuable media files are always protected and enjoy unprecedented availability KEY APPLICATIONS OF THE SCALITY RING INCLUDE: LIBRARY ARCHIVE PRESERVATION: Scality’s petabyte-scale solution manages archives of unlimited size. It enables cost-effective migration to the Cloud, using standard file and Web (HTTP/REST) interfaces. Scality provides an integrated view of a digital catalog across locations, systems and formats. The RING’s erasure coding ensures cost effective data protection for valuable media. PRODUCTION AND POST-PRODUCTION: Scality’s unified storage integrates production workflows, accelerates production time and reduces costs by providing a common data pool across the production lifecycle. Scality’s storage infrastructure enables a significant cost reduction through the use of commodity hardware and open standards. DISTRIBUTION: Scality reduces the administrative overhead and cost of storage infrastructure for avails and digital distribution. Storage can be added at any time without needing to modify workflows or schedule service downtime. Digital avails systems can access a global, unified storage pool providing high availability and automatic replication across sites. Scality’s petabyte-scale solution deals easily with the growth of on-demand catalogs and enables advanced VOD services, reducing the cost per stream for VOD, nPVR and CDNs. nPVR: Scality enables advanced nPVR services, providing content to users where and when they want it and reducing set top box data loss. Thanks to Scality’s highly parallel design, an nPVR system can support millions of users. Scality natively supports POSIX and HTTP interfaces to recording equipment and NFS, CIFS and POSIX interfaces for storing files in Pivot formats. RING scales system bandwidth and capacity as content and users increase, and physical storage space is optimized automatically. Using the RING, operators can store large nPVR catalogs containing multiple copies at the lowest possible cost. OBJECT STORAGE FILE STORAGE BLOCK STORAGE REST, CDMI, S3 & OpenStack Scale Out File System Protocols: OpenStack, NFS NFS, CIFS, FUSE VM: VMWare, KVM, OpenStack Nova SCALITY FACTS Headquarters: 50 California St SCALITY RING Suite 3200 SCALE-OUT SOFTWARE DEFINED STORAGE San Francisco, CA 94111 USA Founded: 2009 KERBEROS, Employees: 75 MESA SSL, ACL Ring End-to-End Object Distributed Security Replication Erasure Geo Tiering In-Storage Management Topology Parallelism Storage DB Coding Replication Processing Reference Customers: with Hadoop Comcast, German Aerospace Agency (DLR), Host Europe, Libero, RTL interactive, SFR, Synacor, Time Warner Cable, Telenet, Wer Kennt Wen Partners: Scality is in active use today to provide unified storage for media archiving, encoding and distribution. Commvault, CTERA, HP, RTL interactive, (a subsidiary of the Bertelsmann RTL Group, one of Europe’s leading entertainment Openwave Messaging, companies), uses Scality RING to power its video on demand services. RTL’s RING was designed to Open-Xchange, SGI, manage tens of thousands of catalog titles and provide hundreds of thousands of simultaneous TwinStrata, Zimbra VOD sessions. Management: BENEFITS CEO: Jerome Lecat CTO: Giorgio Regni The Scality RING for Digital Media, based on object storage technology, provides affordable COO: Erwan Menard scalability without limits and collaboration across digital media workflows. Scality’s low cost storage CFO: Philippe Mechanick solution enables content owners, producers and distributors to find more ways to monetize their media assets. Scality’s RING is available at a price that makes storage for media archiving, production Scality, Inc. 50 California Street and in-house distribution affordable and enables new income streams from VOD, Internet TV Suite 3200 and nPVR. San Francisco, CA 94111 USA The key benefits of Scality RING for Digital Media include: Tel. +1 (650) 356-8500 Fax. +1 (650) 356-8501 • Easily managed scalability, eliminating the need for complex configuration management, 16 Passage Jouffroy large-scale data migration or volume management. 75009 Paris, France • An always-available solution providing best of class service uptime, data durability and Tel. +33 1 78 09 82 70 protection and system resilience in the event of disk, server or data center failure Fax. +33 1 78 09 82 71 • Flexible deployment, including auto-tiering to optimize storage for specific cost, 11921 Freedom Drive performance and resource use goals. Suite 550 Reston, VA 20190 USA • A collaborative solution that provides data synchronization across multiple locations. Tel. +1 (855) SCA-LITY • High bandwidth and low latency, as validated by independent testing organizations www.scality.com such as the Enterprise Strategy Group. • Easy integration with existing applications thanks to native support for HTTP, FUSE, NFS, CIFS, S3 and other popular access standards. © 2014 Scality. All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice. Scality, • A low cost solution that runs on commodity storage hardware, eliminating proprietary the Scality logo, Scality RING are trademarks or registered trademarks of Scality in the United vendor lock-in. States and/or other countries. .
Recommended publications
  • Google Is a Strong Performer in Enterprise Public Cloud Platforms Excerpted from the Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Public Cloud Platforms, Q4 2014 by John R
    FOR CIOS DECEMBER 29, 2014 Google Is A Strong Performer In Enterprise Public Cloud Platforms Excerpted From The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Public Cloud Platforms, Q4 2014 by John R. Rymer and James Staten with Peter Burris, Christopher Mines, and Dominique Whittaker GOOGLE, NOW A FULL-SERVICE PLATFORM, IS RUNNING TO CATCH THE LEADERS Since our last analysis, Google has made significant improvements to its cloud platform — adding an IaaS service, innovated with new big data solutions (based on its homegrown dremel architecture), and added partners. Google is popular among web developers — we estimate that it has between 10,000 and 99,000 customers. But Google Cloud Platform lacks several key certifications, monitoring and security controls, and application services important to CIOs and provided by AWS and Microsoft.1 Google has also been slow to position its cloud platform as the home for applications that want to leverage the broad set of Google services such as Android, AdSense, Search, Maps, and so many other technologies. Look for that to be a key focus in 2015, and for a faster cadence of new features. Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Public Cloud Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Public Cloud Platforms For CIOs, Q4 ‘14 Platforms For Rapid Developers, Q4 ‘14 Risky Strong Risky Strong Bets Contenders Performers Leaders Bets Contenders Performers Leaders Strong Strong Amazon Web Services MIOsoft Microsoft Salesforce Cordys* Mendix MIOsoft Salesforce (Q2 2013) OutSystems OutSystems Google Mendix Acquia Current Rackspace* IBM Current offering (Q2 2013) offering Cordys* (Q2 2013) Engine Yard Acquia CenturyLink Google, with a Forrester score of 2.35, is a Strong Performer in this Dimension Data GoGrid Forrester Wave.
    [Show full text]
  • D1.5 Final Business Models
    ITEA 2 Project 10014 EASI-CLOUDS - Extended Architecture and Service Infrastructure for Cloud-Aware Software Deliverable D1.5 – Final Business Models for EASI-CLOUDS Task 1.3: Business model(s) for the EASI-CLOUDS eco-system Editor: Atos, Gearshift Security public Version 1.0 Melanie Jekal, Alexander Krebs, Markku Authors Nurmela, Juhana Peltonen, Florian Röhr, Jan-Frédéric Plogmeier, Jörn Altmann, (alphabetically) Maurice Gagnaire, Mario Lopez-Ramos Pages 95 Deliverable 1.5 – Final Business Models for EASI-CLOUDS v1.0 Abstract The purpose of the business working group within the EASI-CLOUDS project is to investigate the commercial potential of the EASI-CLOUDS platform, and the brokerage and federation- based business models that it would help to enable. Our described approach is both ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’; we begin by summarizing existing studies on the cloud market, and review how the EASI-CLOUDS project partners are positioned on the cloud value chain. We review emerging trends, concepts, business models and value drivers in the cloud market, and present results from a survey targeted at top cloud bloggers and cloud professionals. We then review how the EASI-CLOUDS infrastructure components create value both directly and by facilitating brokerage and federation. We then examine how cloud market opportunities can be grasped through different business models. Specifically, we examine value creation and value capture in different generic business models that may benefit from the EASI-CLOUDS infrastructure. We conclude by providing recommendations on how the different EASI-CLOUDS demonstrators may be commercialized through different business models. © EASI-CLOUDS Consortium. 2 Deliverable 1.5 – Final Business Models for EASI-CLOUDS v1.0 Table of contents Table of contents ...........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Bluesky: a Cloud-Backed File System for the Enterprise
    BlueSky: A Cloud-Backed File System for the Enterprise Michael Vrable,∗ Stefan Savage, and Geoffrey M. Voelker Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of California, San Diego Abstract There are also substantive technical challenges to overcome, as the design points for traditional client- We present BlueSky, a network file system backed by server applications (e.g., file systems, databases, etc.) cloud storage. BlueSky stores data persistently in a cloud frequently do not mesh well with the services offered storage provider such as Amazon S3 or Windows Azure, by cloud providers. In particular, many such applica- allowing users to take advantage of the reliability and tions are designed to be bandwidth-hungry and latency- large storage capacity of cloud providers and avoid the sensitive (a reasonable design in a LAN environment), need for dedicated server hardware. Clients access the while the remote nature of cloud service naturally in- storage through a proxy running on-site, which caches creases latency and the cost of bandwidth. Moreover, data to provide lower-latency responses and additional while cloud services typically export simple interfaces opportunities for optimization. We describe some of the to abstract resources (e.g., “put file” for Amazon’s S3), optimizations which are necessary to achieve good per- traditional server protocols can encapsulate significantly formance and low cost, including a log-structured design more functionality. Thus, until such applications are re- and a secure in-cloud log cleaner. BlueSky supports mul- designed, much of the latent potential for outsourcing tiple protocols—both NFS and CIFS—and is portable to computing and storage services remains untapped.
    [Show full text]
  • Cloud Convergence
    Next reports reports.informationweek.com February 2014 $99 Cloud Convergence: 6 Standards That Matter While 39% of respondents say the goal of a fully converged datacenter guides their tech purchasing — and personnel hiring — decisions, just 7% say they’ve reached that ideal state. The No. 1 barrier? Insufficient budget, cited by 61%. Here’s how standards can help. By Kurt Marko Presented in conjunction with Report ID: R7601213 Previous Next reports Cloud Convergence: 6 Standards That Matter 3 Author’s Bio 13 Figure 8: Tighter vs. Looser Vendor vs. Proprietary 4 Executive Summary Standardization 30 Figure 24: Public Cloud IaaS S 5 Research Synopsis 14 Figure 9: Preferred IT Vendor List 31 Figure 25: Application Performance 6 Crack The Code 15 Figure 10: API Management Providers Interface 7 Bridging The Public-Private Cloud Chasm 16 Figure 11: Use of API Management 32 Figure 26: Job Title 10 Same Tune, Different Words Providers 33 Figure 27: Revenue 14 6 Standards That Matter 17 Figure 12: Success in Consolidating Skill 34 Figure 28: Industry 19 Conclusions And Recommendations Sets 35 Figure 29: Company Size 21 Appendix 18 Figure 13: Importance of Ability to Move 36 Related Reports Workloads 19 Figure 14: Formalized Standards 21 Figure 15: Technology Deployment Plans Figures 22 Figure 16: Technologies Deployed 6 Figure 1: Impact of FCoE and iSCSI SAN 23 Figure 17: Unified Storage and Data Deployment on Fibre Channel Network Plans 7 Figure 2: The Road to Full Datacenter Convergence 24 Figure 18: Number of Supported API 8 Figure 3: Reasons for Not Planning Datacenter Functions Convergence 25 Figure 19: Impact of Consolidation on IT NTENT 9 Figure 4: Top Drivers for Adopting Convergence Head Count Technologies 26 Figure 20: Use of Technologies for TABLE OF 10 Figure 5: Barriers to Achieving a Fully Converged Storage Connectivity Datacenter 27 Figure 21: Storage Connectivity 11 Figure 6: 2014 Budget Technologies in Use 12 Figure 7: Organizational Viewpoint: Standard vs.
    [Show full text]
  • ITEA 2 Project 10014 EASI-CLOUDS
    ITEA 2 Project 10014 EASI-CLOUDS - Extended Architecture and Service Infrastructure for Cloud-Aware Software Deliverable D1.5 –Final Business Models for the EASI-CLOUDS Use Cases Task 1.3: Business model(s) for the EASI-CLOUDS eco-system Editors: Atos, Gearshift Group Security public Version 1.0 Main authors Markku Nurmela, Juhana Peltonen, and Florian Röhr (alphabetically) Contributors Jörn Altmann, Maurice Gagnaire, Melanie Jekal, Alexander Krebs, Jan-Frédéric (alphabetically) Plogmeier Pages 99 Deliverable 1.5 – Business Impact v1.0 Abstract The purpose of the business impact work group (WGH) and task 1.5 is to investigate the commercial potential of the EASI-CLOUDS infrastructure, and the federation-based business models that it would help to enable. Our approach described is both ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’; we begin by summarizing existing studies on the cloud market, and review how the EASI- CLOUDS project partners are positioned on the cloud value chain. We review emerging trends, concepts, business models and value drivers in the cloud market, and present results from a survey targeted at top cloud bloggers and cloud professionals. We then review how the EASI- CLOUDS infrastructure components create value both directly and by facilitating brokerage and federation. We then examine how cloud market opportunities can be grasped through different business models. Specifically, we examine value creation and value capture in different generic business models that may benefit from the EASI-CLOUDS infrastructure. We conclude by providing recommendations on how the different EASI-CLOUDS demonstrators may be commercialized through different business models. © EASI-CLOUDS Consortium. 2 Deliverable 1.5 – Business Impact v1.0 Table of contents Table of contents ...........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Hybrid Cloud Storage Products
    Build aHybridStorageCloud services and possible pitfalls. This guide can help you make thosedecisions. services make pitfalls.Thisguidecanhelpyou andpossible products, ontheavailable choicesandeducate themselves tomake require users data bothofthesemethodsstoring ofusingthecloudforstorage; common way couldbecomethemost Combining publiccloudservices andon-premisesstorage VIRTUALIZATION CLOUD APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT NETWORKING STORAGE ARCHITECTURE DATA CENTER MANAGEMENT BUSINEss INTELLIGENCE/APPLICATIONS DISASTER RECOVERY/COMPLIANCE SECURITY S MOD HYBRID CLOUD 4 PROS A HYBRID CLOUD 3 S HYBRID CLOUD 2 NoT EDITor’s 1 Guide An Essential TILL HASW TORAG N E D CO PRODU E N E AK S SP C TS OTS E L EDITor’S NOTE 1 Building the Bridge: Making Hybrid Clouds a Reality IT managers who want to take advantage of com- awareness and bandwidth issues are among the items Home petitive cloud pricing, and the promise of elasticity that will factor into the decision process. While pub- that comes with public clouds, will almost always be- lic cloud storage brings the potential for big savings, it Editor’s Note gin their journey to the cloud with a hybrid model. A also presents latency problems; private cloud storage hybrid cloud model is not only the most likely start- is limited to private data centers and it requires the IT Hybrid Cloud ing point for an organization, but it is also often the manager to guarantee scalability at a time when unprec- Storage Products framework they decide on as a lasting strategy. That’s edented volumes of unstructured data are produced. because it allows a combination of on-site cloud storage this Essential Guide to building a hybrid storage cloud Hybrid Cloud Pros and Cons and public cloud storage to accommodate varying needs offers sophisticated analysis, discusses hybrid cloud throughout an organization for data access and speed of storage models for various needs, and answers key Hybrid Cloud Model delivery.
    [Show full text]
  • It's That Time
    December 2014 / January 2015 | Vol. 8 No. 1 VirtualizationReview.com 2015 READERS CHOICE AWARDS WINNER IT’S THAT TIME OFYEAR! Eggnog, presents and the products you like best. PLUS > VIRTUAL PREDICTIONS > DELL’S VDI STRATEGY > UNTANGLING VMWARE DRS VISIT VIRTUALIZATIONREVIEW.COM contents The objective is helping organizations accomplish their 6 goals; not to push any specifi c type of technology. By Dan Kusnetzky 2015Readers Choice Awards “Chromebook desktop ÌÌÌÌ Winner ÌÌÌÌ access looks especially promising, especially in the education market.” Garret Grajek, dinCloud 18 6 December 2014 / January 2015 | VIRTUALIZATION REVIEW | VOL. 7, NO. 2 FEATURES 11 Best Cloud Storage Product 15 Best Network 4 The 2015 Reader’s Choice 12 Best Cloud Security Product Virtualization Product Awards and Buyer’s Guide 12 Best Cloud Software Product 16 Best Virtualization Security Product You, the readers, have spoken. 13 Best Business Continuity Product Here are the virtualization and Best Converged 14 Best Virtualization 17 cloud computing products that Automation Product Infrastructure Product rock your world. Best Virtualization Training 15 Best Storage 17 6 Best Application Virtualization Product Virtualization Product 6 Best Server Virtualization Product Best Desktop Virtualization/ 7 18 2015 Virtualization Predictions COLUMNS Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Product What can you expect to happen 2 Editor’s Note: KEITH WARD in the virtualization and cloud 3 Expectations for 2015 8 Best Mobile Virtualization/ BYOD Product industries in the coming year?
    [Show full text]
  • Storage Outlook
    June 2016 STORAGE OUTLOOK A Look Ahead at the Opportunities and Challenges Facing the Data Storage Industry Regardless of the strategic path taken, the disruption in the storage industry over the past few years assures us that our future is taking a new path and that we must prepare for it much more effectively than in the past. Infor- mation technology has enabled geographically separate communities to connect with each other and discover new ways to learn by enabling access to enormous quantities of data. The arrival of the cloud enables communities to connect and share information so they can quickly develop more efficient ways to advance. Effectively analyzing this much data will demand a highly scalable and infinitely more secure storage infrastructure for its foundation. The worldwide impact of today’s information technology is unprecedented. While everyone tries to predict what lies ahead based on the past, this is no longer possible for the storage industry. As we look ahead, things are changing so fast even the future is obsolete. By: Fred Moore Horison Information Strategies About the Sponsor Oracle’s engineered storage solutions are co-engineered with Oracle software to accelerate applications, increase efficiency, and improve management. TAKING STORAGE TO THE EXTREME Oracle’s storage products and solutions support business applications from end to end, throughout the lifecycle of the application. At Oracle, more than 40 years of storage expertise and innovative thinking have gone into creating a full portfolio of storage products including: All-Flash Oracle FS1 Storage System, Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance, the Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance, Oracle’s StorageTek tape and archiving solutions, and Oracle Storage Cloud Service.
    [Show full text]
  • Cloud Storage: Adoption, Practice and Deployment
    Cloud Storage: Adoption, Practice and Deployment An Outlook Report from Storage Strategies NOW April 4, 2011 By Deni Connor, Patrick H. Corrigan and James E. Bagley Client Relations: Phylis Bockelman Storage Strategies NOW 8815 Mountain Path Circle Austin, Texas 78759 (512) 345-3850 SSG-NOW.COM Note: The information and recommendations made by Storage Strategies NOW, Inc. are based upon public information and sources and may also include personal opinions both of Storage Strategies NOW and others, all of which we believe are accurate and reliable. As market conditions change however and not within our control, the information and recommendations are made without warranty of any kind. All product names used and mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. Storage Strategies NOW, Inc. assumes no responsibility or liability for any damages whatsoever (including incidental, consequential or otherwise), caused by your use of, or reliance upon, the information and recommendations presented herein, nor for any inadvertent errors which may appear in this document. This report is purchased by Gluster for distribution only to its customers and prospects. Copyright 2011. All rights reserved. Storage Strategies NOW, Inc. 1 Sponsors ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 What is cloud storage? ....................................................................................................................................................................5
    [Show full text]
  • Find the $$$ Opportunity Identification Worksheet
    FIND THE $$$ OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFICATION WORKSHEET Unmatched Efficiency Lower TCO Multi Petabyte Scale Real Time Insights Market Opportunity Customer Challenges • 75%+ of storage purchased globally is for • Difficulty scaling efficiently and economically to unstructured data meet humungous growth of unstructured data • Big Data Analytics is a Top 2 initiative for most • Silo’d storage environments for unstructured enterprises workloads lead to: • IDC says the Data Lake Storage market will grow – Uneven or poor utilization from $3B in 2014 to $10B in 2018 (35% CAGR) – Inability to share data across applications • EMC is #1 in Scale Out NAS according to IDC and • Difficulty supporting new web, mobile, cloud Gartner applications with current infrastructure • Shadow IT: LOB’s are going to the cloud to store unstructured data or develop applications EMC Isilon Advantages Questions • Simple to manage and scale within a single • Where does the unstructured data live, in your environment? file system • What are your fastest growing workloads? • Efficient with better than 80% storage • Which unstructured workloads are most critical for you? utilization • Which protocols- do they use? • Scale Out Architecture is Purpose Built for • Are there- any applications being developed, tested, or unstructured data evaluated which you see becoming business critical in • Scalable 16TB to 50PB and beyond the next 12-24 months? • Resilient with Enterprise Grade Data • What concerns you most about things that are Protection happening outside of IT’s purview? •
    [Show full text]
  • On I/O Performance and Cost Efficiency of Cloud Orst Age: a Client's Perspective
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 11-4-2019 On I/O Performance and Cost Efficiency of Cloud orSt age: A Client's Perspective Binbing Hou Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Computer and Systems Architecture Commons, and the Data Storage Systems Commons Recommended Citation Hou, Binbing, "On I/O Performance and Cost Efficiency of Cloud Storage: A Client's Perspective" (2019). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 5090. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/5090 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. ON I/O PERFORMANCE AND COST EFFICIENCY OF CLOUD STORAGE: A CLIENT'S PERSPECTIVE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Computer Science and Engineering by Binbing Hou B.S., Wuhan University of Technology, 2011 M.S., Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 2014 December 2019 Acknowledgments At the end of the doctorate program, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to many people. It is their great help and support that make this dissertation possible. First of all, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Feng Chen, for his continuous support.
    [Show full text]
  • User Experience Studies of Personal Cloud Storage Services
    PARISA POUR REZAEI USER EXPERIENCE STUDIES OF PERSONAL CLOUD STORAGE SERVICES Master of Science thesis Examiner: Prof. Kaisa Väänänen Supervisor: MSc Jarmo Palviainen Examiner and topic approved by the Council of the Faculty of Computing and Electerical Engineering on 14th January 2015 i ABSTRACT PARISA POUR REZAEI: User Experience Studies of Personal Cloud Storage Services Tampere University of technology Master of Science Thesis, 78 pages, 31 Appendix pages September 2015 Master’s Degree Programme in Information Technology Major: User Experience Examiner: Professor Kaisa Väänänen Keywords: user experience, design, cloud storage services Nowadays, individuals’ data is at their disposal in real time from any device with the assistance of cloud storage services (CSS, e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud and Google Drive). Success of cloud computing in an enterprise ultimately depends on delivering user experience (UX) which delivers business applications anytime and anywhere, and on any device that user prefers. CSSs empower new kind of collaborations between individuals and have fundamental impact on how we organize and share our data. Despite an increasing popularity of cloud computing among researchers and academia, and vast variety of CSSs offered to the end users by cloud computing, the literature on UX studies of these services is quite restricted. This master’s thesis studies UX of different CSSs (with focus on Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud) based on 10 interviews and 65 Web survey responses. We analysed the data qualitatively and quantitatively. The results consist of reasons for the most positive and negative experiences and descriptions of current habits and motivations of the CSS users.
    [Show full text]