Opportunities , Concerns and Challenges in the Adoption of Cloud Storage

The impact of Information and Communication Technologies on business models is posing new challenges. It has given birth to a new set of data and related applications. Changing business needs and the explosion of digital data have also created huge demand for massive and efficient storage. Increasing costs for electronic data storage and limited funds made people to think about cloud storage. Such infrastructures need reliable equipments and skilled manpower to handle it efficiently and effectively. Cloud Storage is an important part of cloud computing in which storage is provisioned, on-demand and pay-per usage basis from anywhere through Internet. The paper emphasizes on the adoption of Cloud storage. It reviews its evolution, design principles and different storage services. It presents a generalized architecture of Cloud storage along with opportunities, concerns and challenges in the adoption of Cloud Storage. Keywords—Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage, Virtualization, Design principles, Cloud Storage Architecture.