SCIENCE

Oracle has introduced the Oracle Cloud File System. The Oracle Cloud File System offers organizations a solution that extends cloud characteristics to their storage by enabling more effective storage pooling through a network accessible elastic storage cloud.

The Oracle Cloud File System is available today and is priced at $5,000 per processor. It is available free of charge for storing Oracle software binaries, metadata, and diagnostic files (terms, conditions and restrictions apply).

Oracle Helps Customers Extend Storage to Their Private Cloud

According to the National Institute of Standards, three key characteristics of a cloud are resource pooling, broad network accessibility, and rapid elasticity. Customers seeking to transition from a traditional computing model to a cloud computing environment should consider the Oracle Cloud File System for:

Providing shared pooled storage with unified namespace for applications, operational files, and user files;

Accessing storage either directly over a storage network or over traditional networks; and,

Rapidly growing, shrinking, and migrating storage pools while applications are online.

The Oracle Cloud File System provides advanced data management and security features including:

Snapshots and replication of files and file systems for backups and disaster protection;

Data access security and encryption to protect from security threats; and,

Easy aggregate management operations via file tags.

The Oracle Cloud File System comprises the following features: Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System and Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager.

The Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System is a highly available, general-purpose cluster file system for storing all files including Oracle and non-Oracle related files. It snapshots and restores files on demand to protect important files from human error, replicates files for disaster protection, provides fine-grain access security and data encryption, and supports file tags for easy file management.

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager provides volume management support for Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System and other third-party file systems such as Linux ext3. This allows administrators to store all file system data, including third-party file system data, in Oracle Automatic Storage Management and take advantage of its inherent performance, availability, and manageability benefits.

Oracle Cloud File System takes advantage of Oracle Automatic Storage Management to automate the striping and mirroring of data without the need for third-party volume management software. This feature enables elastic storage environments through its ability to add disks as data volumes increase including restriping and rebalancing of data across disks for optimized performance.