Pilot Recommendations

Christos KK Loverdos

Pithos+ for TCD

Andres Steijaert

GN3+ SA7 leader

Angus Griffin

CloudStore+

University of Porto

• TCD should remain light-weight and mobile (i.e. to be moved anywhere in the cloud stack). It might be rough around the edges but serves its functions.
• TCD-based Storage Middleware is able to maintain the necessary trust and privacy (by federated access management, strong data encryption, and local metadata store) for the interim period while commercial/community cloud storage stacks do not support these features by default. In other words, TCD paves the way towards a cloud environment where users feel comfortable to be in the future.
• TCD can be used as a trusted portal (or common interface) for NREN cloud storage offerings going beyond the national jurisdictions. It facilitates community (NREN) provided storage to be shared across TERENA members.
• With TCD (i.e. by aggregating user demands and brokering down public cloud storage offerings) TERENA can apply pressure on the market. More and more communities should sign up for using TCD as a de facto cloud storage interface. Very first lessons and market reactions can be studied/learned from a public procurement for framework agreement with commercial cloud storage providers run by TERENA.
• In memoriam RECIPE project proposal.
• ACTIONS:
  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.

• 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).

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 cluster offered by NRENs via TCD.
• TERENA can promote PowerFolder to its members as well as PowerFolder can promote the partnership with TERENA.
• ACTIONS:
  1. Discuss the service inter-operation idea and the potential TERENA-PowerFolder strategic partnership internally. Organise a official 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...

• Box focuses on value-added services, simple data storage is less than 10% of the entire picture.
• Box provides the entire cloud stack as an integrated service platform.
• It is a platform for online collaboration, document sharing, group management, virtual teams, collaborative work, etc.
• There is a slight risk of vendor lock-in but the REST API is still there and open.
• 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.