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Decentralized Cloud: The Future of Data Storage

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@pitboy
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The world is going to be decentralized soon. Because people are losing their trust in centralized systems. In a centralized system, users don't know what's going on with their data, and all will be lost if the centralized system collapse! The same thing may happen with cloud storage! So in order to have a fully decentralized blockchain ecosystem, we need to have decentralized storage. Otherwise, we're still relying on a centralized server with one single point of failure.

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You can currently store and access your data from remote servers, but these servers are sitting in a warehouse owned by any centralized organization. What if something happens and you lose all the data? Suppose you are using Google Cloud service to store your data. Nobody knows, anything could happen with Google, and you may lose your data. The electricity connection of Google Datacenter can be disconnected if there is any big disaster in that place. And at that time, you'll not be able to access your data as you choose a centralized platform for your data.

In centralized storage, the host can monitor, sensor, disclose data to a third party. Or your data could even be lost, altered, or scrambled.

Decentralized storage differs from centralized storage that has nodes running on multiple computers in multiple locations. The cloud storage market is estimated to reach 89 billion dollars by 2022. It was around 31 billion dollars in 2017. Microsoft, Amazon AWS, IBM, Salesforce, SAP are all the top cloud storage vendors, with Google and Oracle right behind. Decentralized storage networks run open-source software, so anyone can look into how they operate. These options can potentially employ millions of server devices instead of a few hundred or thousands. By increasing the amount of competition, you can decrease the price of cloud services.

Let's take a look at the current world of data. Currently, we are in the midst of a vast data explosion. Artificial intelligence and IoT devices are producing incredible amounts of data, more than we've ever seen. By the turn of the decade, a Gartner report estimates there'll be more than 20 billion connected devices. The connected devices combined with more and more applications and increased data sharing between organizations significantly increase the need for more data storage solutions.

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We all know that centralized data storage is vulnerable. You guys can remember the breach on the Yahoo server where more than 500 million Yahoo accounts were affected! Or I can write about Equifax hacking scandal or Anthem health insurance breach! All example shows that we can't depend on centralized data storage system with our essential data. So decentralization in this sector is inevitable.

Decentralized cloud storage is the future and has so many benefits. Let me focus on some major benefits here -

Backup of Your Data

You should always back up your data. It's good to have a physical copy of your data, and you're keeping data safe in your house. But what happens if your house burns out or somehow your lost your physical copy? It'll be great that you have a backup of that data somewhere else. You could store all the data in your hard drive and you keep it in your friend's house.

But what if your friend's house is robbed and you lose your data again! This could happen with the centralized data center as well, where all the data is stored under one roof! This is why your need triple backup, decentralized backup so that your data will be always there and you can access it anytime you want.

Quick and Easy Access

Quick and easy access is one of the great reasons to have a decentralized data storage system. We want to access our data quickly and fast from anywhere from any device. You have thousands of photos, videos, documents on your hard drives at home. It's not practical to carry your harddrive everywhere. It's much more convenient to able to access those files from anywhere. If you have big company or team with lots of employees or team members that need to access the same pool of data, it'll be really awesome to have that data uploaded in the cloud where everyone can quickly access.

Key of Your Data

On centralized cloud storage your data won't be yours anymore. Data centers like IBM, Google or Facebook has all of your data and they have the key as well. The sad thing is you don't have the master key of your own data. We have recently seen that Govt. of many countries are putting pressure on companies like Facebook or Google to get access to all the people's data.

This is really alarming that it's our data and companies have the decision-making authority over our data.

Accessibility

With a decentralized cloud service like Cudos or Sia, your data is no longer stored in a central location but instead in the end encrypted split into pieces and distributed among different machines all around the world. This means only you'll have access to your digital possessions.

More Secure

Decentralized cloud is more secure than any traditional cloud storage services that are currently on the market. However, today's cloud is vulnerable to various attacks, which can lead to encryption walls being bypassed, which makes your personal information accessible to hackers.

With a decentralized cloud, your personal info is also a part of the distributed network meaning your personal information is no longer sitting in a central location. Instead, it's split up and distributed across thousands of locations. If hackers know where your personal data is, they can do all kinds of things to hack into that one location.


Besides, there are more benefits of decentralizing cloud storage. As we can save our money by using more cheaper cloud, we can make money by renting our unutilized hardware or devices. So it's time to decentralize Cloud storage.

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