AMD, Seagate, and EY have joined the Decentralized Storage Alliance, a new organization aimed at promoting the benefits of a decentralized approach to storage.
Decentralized storage is a technology where data is stored on a distributed network run by computers, or nodes, located across multiple locations.
The new organization, which also includes blockchain firms Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation among its founding members, will reportedly focus on "driving awareness and adoption" of decentralized technologies such as the cryptocurrency Filecoin, file sharing network IPFS, and peer-to-peer network stack libp2p.
Why use decentralized storage?
In comparison to the currently omnipresent public cloud storage model, decentralized storage will mean that the centralized control and orchestration server will require significantly fewer resources, due to much of the work being taken up by other machines on the network.
However, as not all computers over a distributed network can always be relied upon, there is generally some level of duplication involved.
What will the new organization do?
The Alliance will allegedly create a “trusted forum” where organizations can collaborate to accelerate the adoption of decentralized storage technology.
This will include developing standard specifications and reference architectures that address the "unique needs" of enterprise companies and providing access to education materials, technical resources, and best practices.
In addition, the organization will look to improve the process of onboarding data to decentralized storage networks and make it easier for new data centers to onboard to the network.
Decentralized storage may be a word that we could be hearing a lot more of in the future.
According to research from IDC commissioned by Protocol Labs almost 86% of organizations had a positive view of decentralized storage.
“As a company with a global SaaS blockchain solutions business, we see decentralized storage as an opportunity to diversify and add resilience to our data infrastructure,” said James Canterbury, Partner and Principal at EY Blockchain. "And we see the Alliance as a crucial piece of this – enabling adoption of decentralized storage and cohesion across the broader industry."
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