Under storage efficiency, we capture techniques such as compression and deduplication used by storage providers to make an optimal use of their storage resources by reducing the space needed to store client data.
Compression is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the canonical representation requires. Compression can lead to a reduction of 20% to 70% of disk utilization. Cost reductions arise due to reduction in storage space, real estate, power consumption and cooling.
Deduplication strives instead to discard multiple copies of a common datum; a single copy is stored and extra copies only reference to the original.
Storage efficiency functions are at the heart of every cloud system, and constitute one of the central reasons for the appealing economy of scale of cloud systems. Cloud service providers take advantage of deduplication and compression mechanisms to minimise their storage needs and therefore, their expenditures. Thus, it is very important for TREDISEC solutions not to hinder the deployment of such mechanisms and to work seamlessly on top of them. While storage efficiency is a very important requirement for cloud services, it is more crucial to enable it for the file sharing use-cases.
