A fellow who goes by the handle beaston02 wanted to see how unlimited Amazon's "unlimited" cloud storage plan was, so he uploaded 293 years' worth (2 million gigabytes or 2 petabytes) of PornHub videos to his account.

From Motherboard:

Beaston02 told me he stopped recording streams simply because his interest in it waned. "I know plenty of people have labeled me some huge pervert or someone with a huge porn addiction, but that's really not me at all," he said. "I have more of a problem with collecting or hoarding data than I do with porn." He said he used the exercise to learn Python, SQL databases, and how to handle that much data. "The project ran its course, I got the knowledge I was hoping to get, and I just had no interest in it anymore."

While he's no longer running the scripts that collected the porn, he made them available on Github. Another Redditor, -Archivist, took up the cause with the "Petabyte Porn Project," recruiting other hoarders to help continue recording live public cam sessions all day every day. -Archivist told me in a Reddit message that this represents "upwards of 12 terabytes per day." Those helping hoard are close to two petabytes now, stored on Amazon's cloud and mirrored on Google Drive. Amazon did not respond to Motherboard's request for comment.

Amazon canceled its unlimited storage offering in June.

Gothamist sent a video crew out with dumpster diving comedian Jeff Seal on a trip through NYCs nighttime streets, in which he raided the trashbags of the priciest, most upscale grocers and packaged-food restaurants in Manhattan.

Shooting better photos is often a matter of technique, but sometimes the tiny integrated optics on your device just wont cut it. This 3-in-1 lens attachmentcan provide that camera some added versatility.This lens accessory gives your phone an easily detachable mounting bracket for its collection of lenses. It uses a simple clip mechanism, so it []

For the uninitiated, dinoflagellates are the single-celled organisms behind the eerie algal bloom known as red tide. But some of these tiny marine creatures are capable of producing a beautiful bioluminescent glow, and you can harness their natural light with a Dino Pet, available now in the Boing Boing Store.This dinoflagellate-filled aquarium is shaped like []

Continued here:
Person tests Amazon's "unlimited" cloud storage by uploading 1.8 petabytes of porn - Boing Boing

These days, everyone who is anyone in data storage appears to be partnering with one or more of the big three of the cloud Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure. Of late, Azure seems to be in the ascendancy. The likes of DataCore, Panzura, Nasuni, Zadara, Veritas, Caringo, Datapipe and many others have announced deals with Azure to harness its cloud platform as part of their storage offerings.

Storage and data protection vendors need to have a point of presence in and with the cloud providers, such as Azure, for their customers, said Greg Schulz, an analyst with StorageIO Group. If vendors dont add support on and for those cloud platforms, somebody else will do it and their customers or prospects may look elsewhere.

Another way to look at it is that cloud platforms such as Azure are another tier of storage. But more than that, their underlying compute platforms have local cloud instance of storage backed by elastic block, file and object storage. Storage vendors can deploy their own storage software on this foundation. This gives users options and flexibility regarding where and how they want their storage software deployed.

Azure continues to expand including with the new Azure Stack which enables hybrid deployments, said Schulz.

Some data storage vendors simply connect to cloud service providers via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or a gateway. Others port their storage software to run on a cloud instance (VM) or emerging Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and Dedicated Private Servers (DPS). In this latter case, instead of the storage vendors functionality running on a local hardware appliance, VM or container, it runs in the cloud, using a mix of instances and persistent cloud storage, said Schulz. The advantage, he added, is that when vendor software is running on Azure or another cloud instance, its technology is now in the cloud and using cloud resources.

Examples include Caringo Swarm on Microsoft Azure, which brings file storage into the cloud using Azures worldwide network of managed data centers. The Zadara Storage Cloud delivers block, file and object storage for applications leveraging Azure. By leveraging a Zadara VPSA storage array on Azure, you can migrate applications such as SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint and others to Microsoft Azure without having to reconfigure them. Similarly, Box and Microsoft are working together on Box cloud content management using Azure services. They are exploring ways to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and add Azure regions outside the U.S. to Box Zones for in-region storage on Azure.

Nasuni is another company with a strong Microsoft Azure relationship. Microsoft has a massive base of enterprise customers who, in many cases, already have Azure subscriptions, said Warren Mead, vice president, alliances and business development, Nasuni. They are looking for ways to increase their use of Azure as a means of achieving digital transformation, and Azure object storage is a natural first or second foray into the cloud, especially given every enterprise is dealing with storage growth pains.

Thats why he said it makes good business sense for storage software companies like Nasuni to partner with Microsoft. This provides an opportunity to help users transition from legacy, device-constrained NAS and SAN infrastructure to a scalable, Azure-based storage infrastructure. Mead believes cloud object storage is the new disk, as it provides limitless capacity, high availability and geo-redundancy with cloud economics.

How does Nasuni add value? Without a file system, object stores are merely containers, and it is difficult for enterprises to tap their potential for file sharing and collaboration. Nasuni has developed a global file system that lives in and scales with the cloud. Nasuni enterprise file services, powered by the Nasuni UniFS global file system, leverages Azure object storage to provide primary NAS and archive capacity, backup/recovery, disaster recovery (DR) and global file access in one hybrid cloud. By storing all metadata and files in Azure first and using on-premises caching appliances to provide fast, secure access only to the active data, it is said to offer unlimited capacity on demand, pay-as-you-grow flexibility, rapid recovery points and recovery times, DR anywhere you have power and bandwidth, file access through any device, file collaboration without version conflict and centralized management.

DataCore, too, has made its DataCore Cloud Replication software available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace to support DR efforts. Those with on-premises DataCore deployments can use the Azure cloud as an added replication location to safeguard high availability systems.

For DataCore users seeking hybrid cloud storage, Azure offers a convenient and economically attractive way quickly to roll out and scale a secure remote replication site to safeguard and archive their data; especially when compared to setting up and maintaining a dedicated remote location at a branch office or data center for just this purpose, said Augie Gonzalez, director of product marketing, DataCore Software.

DataCore software replicates data from on-premises virtual storage pools to a remote pool in Azure cloud storage. The asynchronous remote copy travels over standard Internet links protected by a virtual private network (VPN). The on-premises configuration consists of either a software-defined storage infrastructure controlled by DataCore SANsymphony or DataCore Hyper-converged Virtual SAN. They communicate with other instances of DataCore software executing in Azure. Should the on-premises site suffer a major outage or have no space to keep a long-term archive, the copy stored in Azure may be accessed from anywhere.

Managed service providers (MSPs) are also leaping on the bandwagon. Datapipe, for example, has added Azure cloud storage into its portfolio. The company utilizes local disk storage all the way up to its own cloud storage solution.

Being able to include products like StorSimple for Azure allows our clients to keep investments they already have in one of our storage solutions and expand into Azure, said Tim Campbell, product manager, at Datapipe. Start with an easy project like server backup to Azure storage as a way to get backups off site in a cost-efficient manner and gain familiarity with cloud storage technologies.

Speaking of backup, Veritas and Microsoft have inked a multi-year partnership to link Azure (cloud storage, compute, analytics and machine learning) with new management and governance capabilities from Veritas. This includes collaboration to sell hybrid cloud storage jointly to mutual customers.

As part of the partnership, Veritas NetBackup 8.0 now supports storage tiering to Azure. This is said to improve data lifecycle management by optimizing the movement of data to Azure cloud storage. This reduces or eliminates the need to deploy additional storage with a separate point product. For small and midsized businesses, Veritas Backup Exec 16 supports the movement of backup data to Azure. Veritas is also leveraging Azure to drive greater efficiencies for its own workloads. The company has selected Azure as the cloud backend on which to run its Enterprise Vault.cloud service, which provides policy-based information retention to streamline eDiscovery and helps Office 365 subscribers to find archived information quickly.

Enterprises are increasingly looking to Microsoft to help power their digital transformation as they adopt Azure cloud services and Office 365, said Chris Mancebo, global strategic alliances, Veritas. Such hybrid cloud storage scenarios will enable customers to take advantage of the cloud (or multiple clouds) to reduce their storage costs while increasing business agility, and to extract greater value from their data.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

See the article here:
Why Storage Companies Are Partnering with Microsoft Azure for ... - Enterprise Storage Forum

Backing up your most precious files is always a smart move. But local backups are always at risk of fire, flood and hardware failure. You can save your data from these disasters with Zoolz Cloud Storage. This digital time capsule has enough space to back up all your files, with lifetime 2TB storage now just $49.99 at the Popular Science Shop.

Backing up your entire hard drive online would normally be very expensive. Zoolz makes it affordable by using cold storage technology. This provides a long-term home for your files, while still allowing you to download your data within 35 hours. You can keep two computers backed up with one subscription, and Zoolz works across Mac and PC.

The desktop app is actually stacked with great features. The Smart Selection tool lets you choose which files to back up, while bandwidth throttling is really useful on slower connections. You can also control file retention, meaning you can revert to the previous version of any document. For added peace of mind, Zoolz keeps all your data backed up in multiple data centres.

This much lifetime storage would normally cost $3,600order now for just $49.99 to start backing up.

Go here to see the original:
Back up everything with lifetime 2TB cloud storage for under $50 - Popular Science

The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) has gained serious momentum in recent months. Data storage companies such as NetApp, Veritas, Cohesity, MapR, Cloudian and Nutanix are partnering with Google in an effort to broaden the appeal of their offerings. But the Google Cloud itself is a vast universe of services, storage tiers, speeds, feeds and price points.

Google Cloud Platform offers a diverse portfolio that ranges from flexible and unified storage classes to scalable and secure databases, said Chris Talbott, head of cloud storage product marketing at Google. Its designed to handle mission-critical workloads and connect data to any application.

As such, it consists of compute, storage, databases, machine learning, analytics, networking, big data, internet of things, developer tools, management tools and security features. With so many facets to understand, how can users use GCP to reduce storage costs, maximize performance and gain competitive advantage?

Some storage and IT managers have a carte blanche from management to implement cloud-first strategies. They are under no strain to get it right the first time. They are blessed with all the time in the world to figure out the best way to learn from their mistakes and eventually arrive at the right cloud architecture for their organizations. But they represent the lucky few.

In most cases, storage managers are under the gun to show some immediate return. Within a few months, they know they will be called to the carpet to show tangible results in terms of lower storage costs and smaller budgets.

The best way to achieve that, suggested Talbott, is to look for the low-hanging fruit. One likely area, for example, is tape backup. Anyone who is going to have to invest yet again in tape hardware or an upgrade to the latest tape platform should consider the cloud. As well as offering the potential for cheaper storage, the cloud opens the door to doing something with the data (such as analytics) rather than gathering dust in a vault.

Think about underutilized data sets and easy wins, said Talbott. Many organizations are currently backing-up and archiving data to tape, requiring costly infrastructure to maintain and providing little value outside of a recovery event. Not only can you reduce the effort and costs of maintaining that on-premises you can expose those datasets to other technologies in GCP like data analytics and machine learning.

Talbott said that most users are smart enough to assess current needs. They take the time to figure out how they can use cloud storage to fulfill ongoing requirements. But not enough companies look ahead to gain some idea of how their needs may evolve in the years to come. Although it is impossible to predict such things accurately, it is wise to attempt some kind of projection of storage needs at least a couple of years into the future. That might save some embarrassment when you discover in a years time that your plan for cloud storage was hopelessly inadequate.

Storage managers are advised not to rush headlong into cloud storage decisions. They should consult other areas of IT as well as line of business heads before making any firm commitments. After all, storage is just one part of a much larger IT ecosystem. It has to be implemented sensibly in full alignment with other components and enterprise objectives.

While the cloud can reduce the cost of storage and increase the accessibility of data, choosing the right combination of systems is essential in realizing the benefits of cloud storage, said Talbott.

In addition, Talbott recommended using the cloud to take advantage of storage tiers to make information lifecycle policies work for you. As users begin to move data to the cloud, they should try to understand what data needs to be accessed and when so they can take advantage of different storage tiers. For example, GCP offers Nearline and Coldline archival storage. Nearline is best for data that is accessed a few times a year, but if you have data you dont need on a yearly basis, you could move it to Coldline to reduce costs.

To optimize the storage of an object throughout its life, it will likely spend time in each tier of storage from multi-regional to cold, said Talbott. Object lifecycle policies can automate that cascade.

Its one thing to dump data into a cloud repository as a means of reducing costs. But the real value comes in how that data is managed strategically.

Various data and storage management solutions are available from vendors such as StorEdge, Red Hat, NetApp and others. While functionality varies markedly from one tool to another, in general, they are designed to help organizations maintain control over their data, where it resides, how quickly they can access it and how they can harness it in their business.

For organizations who are looking to understand how their GCP cloud investments are meeting business expectations, NetApps data management solutions provide them with clear visibility and insight into cost, performance and data placement to better understand the impact of IT decisions, said Michael Elliott, cloud advocate, NetApp. Organizations can also address the challenges associated with regulatory, data security and sovereignty requirements by maintaining control of their data across its entire lifecycle.

Part of the reason so many storage businesses are partnering with Google is that it provides easy access to innovation and expanded markets.

Collaborate closely with Google, as they are very responsive when it comes to integrating with their services, said Patrick Rogers, head of marketing and product at Cohesity. APIs may work differently across different cloud providers, so what is possible with one provider may not exactly be the same with another.

Greed is good, said Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. Google has paraphrased that to Green is good. Accordingly, the company believes those journeying to the cloud should look beyond cost savings, which are regarded almost universally as the typical measure of success for those adopting cloud storage.

In many cases, cost savings is just a start. This year Google will reach 100 percent renewable energy for all its operations, data centers included. This means users can reduce the environmental impact of their data storage and operations by taking advantage of data centers which use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center.

With the exponential increase in data being stored, it becomes increasingly important to consider how green the electrons are that power its storage, said Talbott.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

See the rest here:
Google Cloud: How to Reduce Data Storage Costs and Maximize Performance - Enterprise Storage Forum

SwiftStack, a leading provider of hybrid cloud storage solutions for enterprises, has announced that Cisco has validated its hybrid cloud storage software for the Cisco UCS S3260 storage server and integrated UCS Manager. It is the only object storage solution with solution bundle part numbers on Ciscos global price list, and is the only such solution with the option of Cisco Solution Support. The combination of ordering efficiency, end-to-end solution support, and validated designs provides for the ideal consumption experience for enterprises.

This Cisco Validated Design (CVD) status is the result of successful completion of comprehensive testing and documentation of SwiftStack by Cisco engineers to facilitate faster, more reliable and more predictable deployments for customers. CVDs provide the foundation for systems design based on common use cases or current engineering system priorities. They incorporate a broad set of technologies, features and applications to address customer needs. With SwiftStack software running on Cisco UCS Storage Servers, organizations can leverage the benefits of the public cloud while retaining the control and level of protection typically associated with private data centers running behind enterprise firewalls and security.

SwiftStack innovations power hybrid cloud storage for enterprises. Enabling freedom to move workloads between private data centers and public clouds like Amazon or Google, SwiftStack software delivers universal access to petabytes of unstructured data in a single namespace. Corporate data remains under the management control of internal IT, served by infrastructure that starts small and seamlessly scales huge within and across geographic regions. The result, pay-as-you-grow consumption of IT-managed resources on-premises and in the cloud.

Enterprises are looking for the benefits of public cloud storage as they modernize their business workflows and leverage hybrid cloud solutions, said Don Jaworski, CEO of SwiftStack. As a Cisco Preferred Solution Partner, we have collaborated to establish a joint solution that leverages the high density and industry-leading networking capabilities of Cisco UCS Storage Servers in a solution that Enterprises can easily and confidently consume.

SwiftStack brings the fundamental attributes of public cloud resources into the enterprise infrastructure: scalability, agility, and pricing based on consumption. Legacy applications can access and consume storage via file services, and cloud-native applications via object. Users gain the freedom to move workloads between private data centers and public clouds like Amazon or Google, and from cloud to cloud, according to administrative policies. Whether on-premise or in public cloud, data remains under the management control of internal IT, residing wherever it is needed by users and applications.

See the original post here:
Cisco Validates SwiftStack's hybrid cloud storage software - Read IT Quik