Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

With the rapid development of distributed computing, containers and multi-form intelligent hardware, edge devices are increasing rapidly, and gradually become the main force of data production. As the underlying support of edge data, edge storage provides high-speed and low-latency data access for edge computing, so as to fully release the value of edge data and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. Recently, Shanyan unified storage platform SandStone USP V3.3 version was officially released. The new version complements and enhances the access interface, network transmission, container support, site management, deployment specifications and other aspects to meet the needs of nearby storage and management of edge data in edge scenarios. To help customers solve the problems of planning, deployment and management of edge storage, this article interprets the relevant features.

1. In the era of Internet of things, edge storage has become a necessary choice.

Edge devices generate a large amount of data, which requires the underlying storage to support a large scale.

In terms of total data, by 2025, the total amount of global data will be as high as 180 ZB, of which 75% of the data will come from the edge and terminals, and 50% of the data will need to be processed at the edge. In terms of data traffic, by 2021, global IP data traffic will reach 3.3 ZB, of which 63% will be generated by edge devices. The huge amount of edge data is inseparable from the strong support of the underlying storage.

Edge devices require high real-time performance, and need edge data storage and processing nearby. With the application of deep learning and augmented reality technology, edge data processing needs real-time. However, the traditional cloud computing model adopts centralized management, and the edge data is processed after remote transmission, which has transmission delay and network fluctuation, so it is difficult to meet the real-time requirements of edge applications. This requires dedicated storage for edge computing to store and process data nearby.

In this context, edge storage can be integrated with artificial intelligence technology, which will promote the emergence of new business forms, such as intelligent transportation, unmanned inspection of power grid, unattended financial network.

2. What exactly is edge storage?

Edge storage is an edge computing service, providing real-time and reliable data access. Edge storage is an extension of edge computing. It is a new distributed storage architecture for edge big data storage. It mainly provides real-time and reliable data storage and access for edge computing. Unlike centralized cloud storage services, edge storage migrates data storage from remote cloud servers to edge storage devices or edge data centers that are closer to the data. It greatly shortens the physical distance between data generation, computing and storage, and has lower network communication overhead, interaction latency and bandwidth cost, and higher scalability.

Hierarchical architecture of edge storage: edge devices-> edge data centers-> distributed data centers. From the hierarchical architecture of edge storage, edge storage consists of edge devices, edge data centers, and distributed data centers, as shown in figure 1. Distributed data centers are deployed in areas far away from the cloud platform, providing EB-level storage services and cooperating with cloud data centers; edge data centers are deployed in areas where edge devices are concentrated, providing TB-level real-time storage services, and multiple small physical data centers are combined into a logical data center; the underlying layer is composed of a large number of edge devices (such as various sensor terminals), which are connected to each other to form an edge storage network.

Figure 1. Hierarchical architecture of edge storage

The value of edge storage: high efficiency and low latency, security and reliability, and the value of promoting cloud-edge collaborative edge storage can be summarized into the following three aspects:

O provide data prefetching and caching services to overcome the high latency and network dependence caused by cloud storage for long-distance data transmission.

O provide distributed data storage services adjacent to edge terminals, taking advantage of rich storage features to alleviate storage and bandwidth pressure on cloud data centers and reduce data risks.

O cooperate with cloud storage to provide storage services, flexibly deploy a variety of application loads, achieve collaborative processing of computing tasks at the edge and in the cloud, and improve the real-time and reliability of data processing.

3. The rapid development of the Internet of things promotes the landing of edge storage scenes.

With the increasing maturity of the Internet of things technology, edge application scenarios have gradually penetrated into many industries. In the power industry, power grid inspection used to be carried out manually, each inspection of a substation takes more than 1.5 hours, time-consuming and labor-consuming. Now the use of sensing equipment, the substation around the video, water and wind and other data, in accordance with the Internet of things transmission protocol, gathered to the edge data center for analysis and processing. The edge storage is responsible for the interconnection and storage between the sensing equipment and the IoT platform, and uploads the data processed by the edge side to the upper data center to realize the intelligent monitoring of the operation status of the substation.

In the transportation industry, a virtual station (gantry system) is set up between each interchange, entrance / exit of the highway to realize the sectional charging of ETC (electronic non-stop toll system) vehicles and MTC (manual semi-automatic toll collection system) vehicles. The vehicle generates transaction flow (or traffic certificate), ETC traffic record and capture image information (including license plate number, license plate color, etc.) through the virtual site, and uploads it to the road section center and network center for receiving, verification, testing, settlement, inspection and other operations, so as to achieve the effect of highway unattended and intelligent toll collection. Edge storage can be deployed in the road section center or network center, which is responsible for storing the recording information and massive images generated by the virtual site, and coordinate with the upper-level data center or cloud.

In the construction industry, smart construction sites are also an excellent practice for marginal scenes. The Internet of things technology is used to collect data generated by all kinds of terminal equipment, such as construction machinery, safety helmets, smart gates, environmental detectors, surveillance cameras, etc., and build a unified management platform by deploying edge storage on the site. The data can be analyzed and processed on the edge side, without having to be sent back to the data center for re-processing. Efficiently realize omni-directional, visual and intelligent management of machinery and equipment scheduling, personnel safety monitoring, construction material inventory, engineering environment monitoring, etc., to help solve the difficulties in construction site management, frequent safety accidents, imperfect environmental protection system and other problems, to ensure the safety and efficiency of the project construction.

In large enterprises, edge storage helps branch offices make better use of data and achieve data aggregation and distribution between headquarters and branches. In this scenario, local branches are equivalent to edge sites, and they have both data to be processed by themselves and data to be synchronized with headquarters. Through the deployment of edge storage, the data is stored locally for a long time after processing in the branch office, avoiding the consumption of link resources with the headquarters; the data that needs to be synchronized can be aggregated to the headquarters in different periods. This not only avoids frequent data exchanges between headquarters and branches, but also enables branches to make more efficient use of data resources and release value.

4. Shanyan unified storage matches the edge scene to improve the edge computing power.

In SandStone USP V3.3, Shanyan complements and enhances some features according to the requirements of the edge scene, providing stronger support in access interface, network transmission, intelligent management, deployment specifications and so on.

Merging blocks, files and objects, relying on IPv6 to support efficient transmission of new versions of the Internet of things and providing access interfaces such as blocks, files and objects, supporting a variety of application loads and meeting the storage access requirements of various edge data types, avoiding the problem of storage selection; distributed, decentralized architecture, no performance bottleneck, and can flexibly replace applications deployed on the edge side, not affected by hardware, more flexible The new support for IPv6 protocol enables the data link to carry rich Internet of things protocols, meet the needs of customers in different industries for transmission standards, and improve the efficiency of network communication between data centers.

Rich API to achieve intelligent management, good docking containers to promote Yunbian cooperation with the new version to support rich API to achieve automated storage management strategy, help users to easily manage underlying storage resources, and provide enterprise-level storage features such as life cycle automation management and remote disaster preparedness to achieve intelligent operation and maintenance and reduce the pressure on operation and maintenance personnel. Support container stateful storage, provide persistent storage capacity, and promote the coordination of resources, applications and data between the cloud and the edge on the premise of flexible deployment of application loads. avoid the shortage of resources and insufficient computing power when deploying edge devices, and improve the real-time, reliability and security of data processing.

Unified view management branch site, miniaturization deployment reduces construction cost the new version supports centralized control of branch site, and provides unified view management interface, site status is clear at a glance, avoiding frequent screening of the running status of edge terminals; support multi-site standardization and miniaturization deployment, easy to use, fast business launch, and ensure continuity while ensuring low cost.

With the wide application of edge scenarios, enterprises' demand for the value of edge storage is becoming more and more specific and clear. Shanyan unified storage platform implements a set of storage to support a variety of edge terminals for data storage, data nearby storage reduces the risk of data leakage, unified resource allocation helps customers reduce hardware consumption, saves overall costs and improves revenue for customers at the same time.

Edge computing has become an important technical support for the application of the Internet of things, and the edge scene will blossom under the promotion of industry demand. According to the needs of edge scenarios, the new version of Shanyan unified storage platform SandStone USP helps customers solve the planning, deployment and management problems of edge storage, supports faster edge computing with more powerful edge storage, and provides massive intelligent storage support for edge data.

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