There are many ways to connect to cloud storage. The most popular one is to provide web interface inside a web browser. For example, Google Docs, SkyDrive all have their own web interface. The problem of this is that it can’t be interoperable with existing applications until the applications are re-written. Google has a Google Cloud Connector for this purpose to connect Microsoft Office applications to Google Docs.
The other way is to connect directly from OS. For example, Chrome-OS is an Internet-based OS that has everything in the cloud. From within Chrome browser, you can do various browser-based access to different cloud storage services.
The third way is to translate cloud storage service into mountable file system and to allow different local applications to interact with the cloud storage as a file system. This will be an important way for many of the local applications to connect to cloud storage. For example, Nuance has a Cloud Connector that connects OmniPage to the cloud.
This article documents the way of how various Gladinet cloud storage access solutions become the cloud storage connector for many local applications, such as the Nuance Cloud Connector.
At the center of the diagram is the core framework for many cloud connector base functionalities, such as WAN optimization, caching, reliability, performance, security and compression related code.
On the right side, the core framework is connected to many cloud storage service plugins, such as those for Amazon S3, Google Storage, Windows Azure, EMC Atmos, OpenStack, Mezeo and Scality.
On the left side, the core framework is connected to several core interface, such as the Windows Drive Mapping interface, Windows Installable File System interface, Windows Volume Shadow Copy service and many other customized interface that can be done by Gladinet consulting.
With this architecture, most of the cloud storage service can appear as part of Windows 7, part of Windows 2008 or part of your custom application.
Contribution By Jerry Huang / CEO of Gladinet
