- [Instructor] Alright, so now let's dig into the details
of cloud computing architecture
and specifically I'm going to look at cloud storage first.
So what's important here is that you need to store data
someplace and cloud storage provides those services.
And it really was the first services that cloud providers
provided because everybody needed to store stuff.
Files, objects, databases, things like that.
And they needed raw physical storage to make that happen.
And the great thing about cloud
is we didn't have to own the storage.
And so if we were running out of storage,
we didn't have to go off
and buy very expensive disk packs for the data center.
We could just make a deal with a cloud provider
and store stuff there as if it was a physical drive
that was co-located with our applications and other systems.
So it's really how cloud computing began.
We need to understand the difference between block,
object, and file storage,
which are the three basic types of storage
that the cloud providers provide.
And whether you use Amazon Web Services, Microsoft,
or Google, you're going to find that they provide
some services for block, object, and file storage,
and so you need to understand the differences.
So block storage, such as AWS, Amazon Web Services,
Elastic Block Store, which stores information
in blocks of data, blocks of information.
While it's used, it's typically not used a lot.
Lots of applications may find it easier
to store information onto physical storage devices
using block-based interfaces,
but most often their prefer an object-based storage
and some of the applications out there
and some of the services
such as database services like Amazon's DynamoDB,
leverage object storage as well.
So object storage such as AWS's S3,
Microsoft Azure Blob Storage is optimized
for storage of large volumes of unstructured data.
And so the reason we deal with object storage is because
it doesn't necessarily dictate
how we're going to structure the information.
In other words, we're able to push the information
onto an object storage system, such as S3,
any way we need to push that information
and pull information off in the same way.
So the data is stored in immutable objects
and the contents which can only be written
or updated in their entirety.
So ultimately, this is about a simple primitive way
in which we're storing information
on a physical storage device,
in this case on the cloud.
And we're doing so in a way that allows us the freedom
to basically use the storage system
pretty much any way we want to,
and so that's why object storage
is typically the way in which we store information
from cloud based databases like DynamoDB.
It can be ways in which you store information
such as web content and other things
where you're just storing information in a single place
and you're not interested in applying
some sort of a structure to the way
in which you're storing information.
So it obviously provides you with the most freedom.
File storage is something we're all familiar with
and it's the ability to leverage standard
file systems for storage.
And if you're using a computer
and you see the file system on your computer
and you have directories and hierarchies
and things like that.
Well this is in essence the analog for that.
So it's integrated with block and object storage.
It's a way of looking at block
and object storage in a different way.
And of course it provides a structure,
provides a file system,
which allows us to push files onto the file system
and pull files off the file system.
Just like we do with our computers.