SkyCDS: A resilient content delivery service based on diversified cloud storage

Abstract

Cloud-based storage is a popular outsourcing solution for organizations to deliver contents to end-users. However, there is a need for contingency plans to ensure service provision when the provider either suffers outages or is going out of business. This paper presents SkyCDS: a resilient content delivery service based on a publish/subscribe overlay over diversified cloud storage. SkyCDS splits the content delivery into metadata and content storage flow layers. The metadata flow layer is based on publish–subscribe patterns for insourcing the metadata control back to content owner. The storage layer is based on dispersal information over multiple cloud locations with which organizations outsource content storage in a controlled manner. In SkyCDS, the content dispersion is performed on the publisher side and the content retrieving process on the end-user side (the subscriber), which reduces the load on the organization side only to metadata management. SkyCDS also lowers the overhead of the content dispersion and retrieving processes by taking advantage of multi-core technology. A new allocation strategy based on cloud storage diversification and failure masking mechanisms minimize side effects of temporary, permanent cloud-based service outages and vendor lock-in. We developed a SkyCDS prototype that was evaluated by using synthetic workloads and a study case with real traces. Publish/subscribe queuing patterns were evaluated by using a simulation tool based on characterized metrics taken from experimental evaluation. The evaluation revealed the feasibility of SkyCDS in terms of performance, reliability and storage space profitability. It also shows a novel way to compare the storage/delivery options through risk assessment.