We are all aware that most companies have a traditional data cloud storage structure, making their information vulnerable in one centralized data center with many potential security risks.
However, what if companies could
place their data in a decentralized infrastructure? What
benefits would they have? What would the process look like? How much money
would companies save in doing this?
This article will provide the answers
to those questions and more. But first, let’s explain the current situation of
centralized data centers.
Current
Conditions of Centralized Data Centers Worldwide
The total number of internet
users worldwide grew by 332 million in the past 12 months, with more than
900,000 new users each day. To respond to these off-the-charts growing
rates, companies have developed massive
centralized cloud computing and data storage centers. Unfortunately, therefore,
the server’s Internet infrastructure is usually placed only in the most
advanced regions of the planet, plagued with deficient distribution to the rest
of the world.
On the other hand, it takes time and billions of dollars to construct hyper-scale data centers that could remedy this situation. At the same time, not all aspects of environmental impact are considered in the creation of such facilities, which makes the situation difficult since the usage of electronic devices made up between 10-20% of the world’s electricity supply in 2020.
Source: Depositphotos
Nevertheless, the Internet is the
world's largest network of information, so it is essential to have a secure, decentralized
infrastructure and inexpensive architecture to store, share, and — in an ideal
world — control our information.
P2P
Cloud Storage Is the Best Way to Keep Your Data Private and Secure
A peer-to-peer cloud storage network is a decentralized and encrypted
platform based on nodes, where these nodes are people around the world who
store data in the most secure and private way.
But, why should we decide to move to a peer-to-peer network? Consider these four reasons:
1. 100% Secure and Censorship-Resistant
Because
there is no centralized server, P2P systems do not have a single potential
breach point and thus a single point of failure. As a result, any server may
fail catastrophically, resulting in data outages and impacting millions at one
go.
The strength of P2P cloud storage is generated in the
nodes distributed around the world, where data is cut into pieces before being
stored on different nodes and is reconstructed only when needed by the user.
This means that if a node shuts down, the self-healing decentralized
infrastructure will redistribute data to other nodes and make it fully
available on the network again in milliseconds.
On the other hand, censorship is
increasingly used on the Internet, demonstrating that it isn’t the free and
neutral environment it used to be.
There are three forms of censorship today:
- Prohibiting people’s access to particular
Internet destinations and services.
- Disabling access to disruptive
technologies that enable users to overcome censorship.
- Identifying users who are circumventing censorship.
Several censoring tools are available,
where most of them take advantage of the fact that circumvention traffic is
easily identifiable.
That’s why everyone needs access to a P2P cloud solution and a thoroughly reliable and globally scalable P2P filesystem.
Source: Pixabay
2. Decentralized Ecosystem
Having a peer-to-peer secure infrastructure is essential for any web3 solution to efficiently scale Hosting web3 solutions and storing data on such infrastructures provide some major advantages. Here are two benefits:
Efficient Data Download
File
download time is one of the most critical performance indicators for any
project. In a peer-to-peer cloud storage network, download times are incredibly
fast as the network finds the shortest paths for data to transit, and doesn't
depend on centralized servers to relay the information. The result is reduced
latency, shorter and more sustainable paths, multiple hop connections, and
cross ISP traffic the bottlenecks to make data download faster.
P2P
networks are able to take the most efficient routes as the infrastructure is
distributed across many locations and therefore data can be stored closer to
where it is needed the most.. It can be compared to a "global peer-to-peer
network VPN" that operates on top of existing networks and seeks any
avenue to connectivity. At the periphery, strongly authenticated.
More Cost-Effective Infrastructure
On
the other hand, P2P cloud storage eliminates the need for costly centralized
servers that require ongoing maintenance and monitoring. Also, to support data
centers’ hardware stacks, enormous cooling systems are required to keep them
cool, leading to unnecessary extra costs. By having many people and
organizations hosting the infrastructure anywhere around the world, a lot of
efficiencies are achieved. This allows storing large data sets with
significantly reduced costs.
3. 100% Autonomy
The
data centers that operate today are monitored by semi-automated processes,
where the only way to verify that things are going well is through supervisors.
Unfortunately, this makes the system vulnerable to human error and malicious
hacking possibilities.
Therefore, if decentralized cloud storage systems
were used, these overheads and backdoors would be eliminated since the system
would be 100% controlled by autonomous technology that can execute all
workloads.
4. Environmentally friendly
One of the significant benefits of
migrating from traditional data center storage to a peer-to-peer network is the
high energy-saving capacity. According to Computational Research, companies could end up
using 87% less energy if they migrate to cloud storage.
Nevertheless, the challenge of
maximizing energy savings in the IT industry must be continuous, so it has
reached a level of proclaiming carbon neutrality. While some may argue that
this is environmentally friendly, it decreases the quantity of green energy
accessible to the rest of the economies they operate.
Finally, there is one P2P cloud
storage alternative that fulfills these requirements: ThreeFold — an integral
solution created to solve the specific issues mentioned above. ThreeFold is a + decentralized,
secure infrastructure and self-contained decentralized
internet network, offering evolving efficiency and innovative ways of connecting
people around the globe.
5. Data Breaches and Power Outages
Remember
the last time that you saw news related to data breaches and power outages in
the data storage industry? These happen all the time and some unrecoverable
consequences have occurred throughout the past years because big tech companies
settled their data inside traditional data centers.
When
a data breach happens, it is normally because of:
- A
lack of internal security
- Unreliable
data storage hardware
- Weak
user passwords.
- Cyber-threats
against centralized data centers
- The human error leading to backdoors in the system
On
the other hand, power outages occur because of:
- Single
point of failures
- High
data traffics that can’t be supported by centralized servers Meteorological
reasons (Storms, earthquakes, high wind, snow)
- Cyber-attacks to centralized data centers
As
you can see, most of the causes that generate data breaches and power outages
can be fixed if companies could implement a peer-to-peer network to manage
their data, which makes ThreeFold the best solution.
Why You Want ThreeFold As Your P2P Cloud
Storage Solution
With ThreeFold, your data is distributed across a
decentralized cloud network of nodes that use ThreeFold’s
ultra-secure and open-source software.
Together, these nodes form a global grid of interconnected compute and storage
that can host all forms of data and applications.
At the same time, ThreeFold’s decentralized nodes
have their IPv4 and IPv6 address. They are fully interconnected, and all traffic on the ThreeFold’s
network is encrypted and conceived to be a complete peer-to-peer infrastructure,
making it impossible for data to be stolen, modified, or shut down. This is
very different from blockchain consensus mechanisms where data is shared across
the network. On ThreeFold users benefit from a unique private environment
accessible only via their private key.
Don't store your data on vulnerable
and centralized storage systems, the time has come to switch to P2P cloud
storage.