Hera Object Storage: A Seamless, Automated Multi-Tiering Solution on Top of OpenStack Swift

Abstract

Over the last couple of decades, the demand for storage in the Cloud has grown exponentially. Distributed Cloud storage and object storage for the increasing share of unstructured data, are in high focus in both academic and industrial research activities. At the same time, efficient storage and the corresponding costs are often contrasting parameters raising a trade-off problem for any proposed solution. To this aim, classifying the data in terms of access probability became a hot topic. This paper introduces Hera Object Storage, a storage system built on top of OpenStack Swift that aims at selecting the most appropriate storage tier for any object to be stored. The goal of the multi-tiering storage we propose is to be automated and seamless, guaranteeing the required storage performance at the lowest possible cost. The paper discusses the design challenges, the proposed algorithmic solutions to the scope and, based on a prototype implementation it presents a basic proof-of-concept validation.