Organically distributed sustainable storage clusters

Abstract

The ability to create low-cost, high-availability, moderate-performance, low-power, sustainable file storage clusters that may be organically distributed throughout an organization would allow organizations to bring data back from cloud-based providers, provide local backup solutions, create local distributed storage pods, and allow remote developing countries to have access to information and other compute resources. The Internet of Things has driven much of the development in low-power ecological systems. The emergence of these devices allowed for the creation of this research project. This research utilized the design science method to create an instantiation of this concept as a demonstrative artifact that could be powered on USB power provided from almost any source. This includes the ability for small solar arrays to provide adequate power to charge the onboard power banks, allowing for continual use over periods of power loss or darkness. This artifact was evaluated using real-time direct download from up to twentyfour workstations. During the course of the research for a period of over approximately 400 days, the artifact performed without interruption. This could be an indication that it may be possible to replace cloud-based storage with organically-distributed sustainable systems for enterprise-level use.