Oracle on Feb. 7 introduced a new storage file system for applications running in a private cloud, called — appropriately enough — Oracle Cloud File System.
The new file system automates much of a system’s storage data management capabilities and institutes storage pooling across files, middleware and applications in a cloud. The idea is to extend existing cloud characteristics to existing storage by enabling more effective storage pooling through a network accessible elastic storage cloud.
Pooling is an approach to storage virtualization that delineates specific areas of the storage system to be dedicated to specific data flows, in order to enable more efficient multitenant service deployments.
Virtualized storage systems break files into chunks of data that are dispersed into numerous data center or storage locations, and reassemble them on demand. Keeping data file chunks closer together in pools theoretically provides faster reassembly of file chunks.
For more, read the eWeek article: Oracle Ships New Cloud Storage File System for Pooling.