Want more...Storage

I have a Data Robotics Drobo FS network storage appliance at home with ten terabytes of disk space.  That seems like a lot of disk space, but one thing I know is that you can never have enough storage.  Thankfully, Delphi and C++Builder support the Microsoft Azure API and you can access the Azure Queue, Table, and Blob storage services.  You can also easily use Amazon S3 storage using Delphi and C++Builder.  Marco Cantu has written a blog article about his Delphi Amazon S3 programming example at http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/delphi_rest_client_repository_opening.html.

There are many additional cloud storage systems and API's that you can leverage using RAD Studio XE.  I recently gave a series of webinars covering things you can build using RAD Studio XE along with cloud storage and cloud computing.  There is also a 3 part series of articles, on my Computerworld blog, about NoSQL database systems ("The end of SQL and relational databases?") starting at http://blogs.computerworld.com/15510/the_end_of_sql_and_relational_databases_part_1_of_3.

Salesforce dot com has also announced database.com, an enterprise cloud database solution.  Database.com will provide the relational data store, file storage (for videos, pictures, and documents), a programming API using REST and SOAP, tools, and administration.  The Dropbox developer API uses REST and JSON - an easy solution for Delphi, C++Builder, RadPHP, and Prism developers to leverage.

Cloud storage can be used to run businesses and backup important data.  You can also use cloud storage architectures for your inside the firewall data needs.  In June, Apple Computer announced iCloud, a cloud storage system for all of the content and applications used by your computers and devices.

The great thing about storage is that you can always get more (of course within the limits of hard disk interfaces).  I remember the days when Charlie Calvert and I would stop by Fry's Electronics in the Silicon Valley to check the prices of hard disk drives.  There was one milestone we noted when drives crossed the $1/megabyte.  That was party time.  Today you can get a 2TB SATA drive for less than $100 ($0.000045/megabyte).

The great thing about cloud storage is there are many cloud storage providers including Amazon S3, Dropbox, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace Cloud, Nirvanix, Google Storage for Developers, database.com, Ubuntu One, and Box.net to name a few.

Are you using cloud storage for your development?