Storing Files and Objects Using Web and Mobile Apps

  

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I wrote a post recently about sharding the object and file storage layer with web and mobile applications.  The summation of that post is this:  managing objects at scale is difficult. 

I thought I would back that statement up with some code.  The code that a developer writes for the sharding scenario is part of what doesn't scale.  Writing code to handle shards for the purpose of storing objects is messy, untenable at scale, and generally unpleasant to write and manage. 

Writing code to utilize object storage is much more pleasant.  Developers focus less on the storage infrastructure and more on their core applications.  Writing very little code using the Atmos API bindings goes a long way.  And it's significantly easier to write, manage, and scale your application because Atmos does much of the heavy lifting.

The Short Runway of CIFS and NFS

CIFS and NFS have short runways.  Let me explain. 

You can use CIFS and NFS for web and mobile applications --- up to a point.  Low volumes and small deployments may work perfectly fine with traditional NAS deployments.  But the runway is relatively short --- as you gain speed (volume of data and number of users) you'll reach the end of the runway before you know it.   The management overhead alone is an insurmountable problem when you have more than a handful of webservers and NFS/CIFS mounts. 

Here's an example of the code that you'd have to write if your web application was sharding data on the back-end using a file system.  The example is in .NET, but certainly applies to any language that developers may use instead.

There's quite a bit that developers need to handle.  Wade through the code for a few minutes and you'll see that it's cumbersome, thorny, and subject to ongoing engineering effort.

Less Turbulence at 30,000 Feet

Experiencing turbulence mid-flight is the worst.  So is trying to scale an application while the volume of data and users grow.  The more elegant way to manage files and objects at scale for your applications is to use a platform designed for specifically for this purpose.  Atmos provides a RESTful web services API optimized for unstructured content such as PDF, Word, PowerPoint, images, etc. 

Developers can use the REST API language bindings and start writing objects to Atmos with very little code.  The code is easier to manage, scales well, and allows developers to focus on their core applications rather than the storage infrastructure. 

Write a file – cloud storage approach

Atmos makes it easier to develop applications at scale.  If you're building storage infrastructure for web and mobile applications download Atmos, our cloud storage platform, and take it for a test drive.