Evaluating A File Fragmentation System For Multi-provider Cloud Storage

Currently, storage services represent a new way to do business in Cloud computing. This new trend is proved by the number of Cloud storage providers that are appearing on the market. In this work, we present an innovative approach useful for using different Cloud storage providers in a transparent way, avoiding both data lock-in and possible data privacy violation that can be caused by providers themselves. More specifically, we propose an approach enabling Cloud customers to rely on many Cloud storage providers. Differently from other solutions, with our approach only the customers have the full control of their data, and in addition, if a provider suddenly disappears and/or it is not available anymore, the customers will be able to continue accessing their data, reconstructing them from data fragments replicated in other Cloud storage providers. The paper shows how such an approach works. In particular, experiments, besides proving the goodness of our approach, also provide several guidelines regarding how to properly configure software systems in order to meet the customer's requirements (in terms of both QoS and costs).