In today’s fast-paced digital economy, the widespread use of information technology, including 5G, IoT, and AI, generates a constant influx of massive data. This surge highlights the limitations of traditional centralized cloud storage, which is susceptible to cyber attacks and privacy breaches. Furthermore, centralized control leads to issues like selling data to third parties and unauthorized privacy breaches.
CESS has effectively addressed the industry challenges faced by most decentralized storage projects through innovative technology. It has established a new paradigm for decentralized cloud storage in Web3, enabling data ownership to return to users and delivering enhanced data security and privacy.
CESS stands out by using innovative technology to revolutionize Web3’s decentralized storage landscape. It introduces a new paradigm where data is connected, shared, and valued. So, how does CESS achieve this? We’ll explore CESS’s storage capabilities, services, technical attributes, and strengths, with a focus on Smart Space Management. This article explains how CESS minimizes storage waste and maximizes network space utilization through pooling technology and scheduling systems.
Space Classification
The storage space in the CESS network is divided into three classes: unverified space, idle space, and active space.
Unverified space: Unverified space refers to the space reported by the storage node itself, which is specified by the miner through its set up configuration to indicate how much space from the hard disk can be used for CESS network. The larger the specified space, the more CESS tokens are staked. However, this portion of unverified space does not bring any rewards.
Idle space: Idle space is a verified space. In terms of CESS network, it refers to the space that can be purchased; in terms of users, it refers to the remaining space that can store data; in terms of storage nodes, it refers to the space that stores idle files, and can earn rewards.
Active space: Active space is a verified space, which refers to the space where user data is stored. Active space can earn more rewards for a storage node.
Storage Node Space Management
Storage nodes play a crucial role in the CESS network by providing verifiable storage space to earn incentives. How does CESS manage the storage space of nodes worldwide? CESS establishes a standard paradigm through smart space management.
Storage node space management will regularly check the status of the hard disk, calculate the available space on the hard disk and the space used by the storage node. It will also check the data on the storage node. The action serves the following two main purposes:
1. Ensure that the storage node does not occupy space that exceeds the configured capacity for the hard disk: when the available hard disk space is less than 32GB, even if the configured capacity is not reached, the storage node will still stop storing idle files.
2. Regularly clean up invalid data, including malformed data: expired cache, and challenge failed data, to ensure that the data stored in the storage node is valid.
The storage node space management process is as depicted in the diagram below. After miners/node operators fill out the configuration file, the CESS network initiates storage node services, launching the smart space management tasks.
The storage node checks its hard disk status before storing idle data. It can store idle data and earn rewards only if the hard disk has over 32GB of available space and hasn’t reached its configured capacity.
After the storage node stores user data, it randomly selects an idle data for deletion and reports the event to the network.
Whole Network Space Management
Once we’ve grasped the concept of storage space management, how can we make sure that each storage node’s data can be trusted and that they don’t misbehave? The storage nodes form a global distributed network, each contributing varying storage capacity. To ensure the verifiability of data stored by these nodes, CESS has introduced a mechanism called ‘space governance.’ This mechanism reports the storage space of all storage nodes to the blockchain, enabling unified management and safeguarding against malicious behavior by storage nodes.
The space management mechanism is divided into three stages:
1. Filling stage: A storage node searches for TEE Worker (Learn about TEE Worker: Exploring the Four Miner Types in CESS’s Decentralized Storage Network) to fill its space. TEE Worker generates unique and verifiable data for the storage node in TEE. The storage node reports the data hash to the CESS chain, which records and adds the idle space to the storage node.
2. Usage stage: When a storage node has idle space, it can receive user data for storage, and the data will be cut to the same size as its idle data. After the storage node confirms the successful storage of the user data, it will then randomly remove an equivalent amount of its idle space and report this action to the CESS chain. Consequently, the CESS chain will expand the storage node’s active space while decreasing its idle space.
3. Challenge stage: The CESS chain presents challenges to storage nodes at irregular intervals, whether they have idle or active space. Each storage node must complete the corresponding data challenge (proof of data calculation) within a specified timeframe, then report this proof back to the CESS chain. The CESS chain performs a verification process. Successful verification leads to rewards, while failure results in penalties.
Conclusion
CESS effectively categorizes storage space through smart space management. It sets scheduling tasks within the network space, intelligently distributing user data to nodes across the globe, maximizing and efficiently utilizing storage space. The mechanism of whole-network space governance ensures the verifiability of storage node data.
CESS’s smart space management, through comprehensive resource and load coordination across the entire network, achieves high availability and efficiency. It showcases a storage space management paradigm — a decentralized cloud storage network composed of numerous global nodes. This paradigm, under an effective management mechanism, addresses issues of used space and waste, achieving the maximum utilization of storage space.