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TCD Pilot Final Consultation - Unleashing the NREN clouds

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• TCD should focus on its main asset; maintaining trust and privacy of the client domain by separating metadata and encryption keys (to be kept in a trusted place) from the storage data (to be exported to back-end storage) at the domains' boundary.
• TCD should not compete with the feature-rich front-end sync&share applications available on the market (such as PowerFolder or OwnCloud platforms) instead, broker them to various public and/or NREN-provided storage back-ends in a trusted way.
• TCD should be a lightweight, thin layer (preferably controlled and operated by NRENs) separating/interfacing end-user application domains and cloud service provider domains; considered to be a "storage middleware".
• TCD should ensure the interoperability with some selected private storage service platforms (throughout strategic partnership) at the front-end as well as aggregating demands and relaying storage data to public cloud storage offerings (procured by TERENA under framework agreements) at the back-end.

Consultation participants

TCD pilot core team:

• Demands

• Current services

• Use case for TCD

• Role of NREN

• Role of TERENA

Other TERENA NRENs interested:

• Demands

• Current services

• Use case for TCD

• Role of NREN

• Role of TERENA

Non-TERENA organisations:

• Demands

• Current services

• Use case for TCD

• Role of Organisation

• Role of NREN

• Role of TERENA

Community and commercials:

• Current services

• Integration with TCD

• Role of NREN

• Role of TERENA

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1. TEREAN prepares for a "public tender for framework agreement(s)" with one or more public back-end storage provider(s). The storage offering(s) are planned to be available on the TCD platform for NRENs and academia.
2. The technical annex of the tender can also be marketed as a template (best practice document) for national storage procurements complying with the TCD service platform as a de facto trusted cloud storage middleware/interface.

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• PowerFolder (Germany based) offers private sync and share solutions for Businesses, Educational/Research organizations and Partner. Find the presentation at TF-Storage here.
• Sync core and client are open source (that is a plus), while there are closed source solutions for web, mobile and additional security (that will be inside the private user domain, anyway).
• PowerFolder is implementing storage layer abstraction based on Java7 file system abstractions (supporting Apache Hadoop, etc.) as we speak. It is the good moment to take into account the integration with TCD.
• TCD could communicate with the PowerFolder storage abstraction layer; via standard WebDAV as the very first option. Performance issues might come up...
  • Data management: no data changes beyond the TCD platform thus no sync is needed. File system level search, etc. can be done on the metadata without touching the storage data.
  • Key management: can be either fully transparent (both platforms are federated so that user access can be handled seamlessly) or can be aggregated (PowerFolder is federated toward end-users and there is one single institutional account towards TCD at the back-end).

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Concept diagram

• Potential strategic partnership between TERENA and PowerFolder: Win-win situation.
• PowerFolder offers complete private storage solution (deployment and cloud stack integration on site) to R&E clients and in addition can offer value-added trusted back-end storage options in both public and NREN-provided clouds via TERENA TCD platform backed by TERENA.
• TERENA offers access to public clouds (opt-in to TERENA Framework Agreement) or access to national data storage clusters offered by NRENs via TCD.
• TERENA can promote PowerFolder to its members as well as PowerFolder can promote the partnership with TERENA.

• Outcome:
  1. Discuss the service inter-operation idea and the potential TERENA-PowerFolder strategic partnership internally. Organise an informal meeting between TERENA and PowerFolder to follow up.
  2. Work on a "proof of concept" solution for PowerFolder - TCD communication at the back-end.
     1. Peter to provide access to TCD test installation at TERENA.
     2. Christian to consider the TCD WebDAV interface during the PowerFolder storage abstraction layer implementation.
  3. Keep in touch...

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1. Direct integration with TCD might not be implemented in a sensible way. The Box cloud stack is pretty much closed, from front-end application up to back-end storage.

In line with the strategic direction outlined above, TERENA will further explore:

A) the service brokering scenarios made available by the TCD-Pithos+ and the TCD-Swift integrations; different NREN storage infrastructures and/or public cloud storage back-ends can be brokered down to user domains in a trusted, privacy-controlled way.

B) the service integration scenarios with feature-rich end-user storage applications; both community-developed and commercial solutions (such as OwnCloud and PowerFolder) will be investigated for potential integration with TCD functionality to preserve trust and privacy.

Consultation notes (restricted for the moment)

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