Designing Network-Attached Storage Architecture for Small and Medium Enterprise Applications

The Network Attached Storage (NAS) embraces the fascinating features of the Cross-platform, Web Hosting, File Sharing, Cloud Service, Email, Security Control and Multimedia technologies. Currently, NAS is classified as two types, Storage NAS and Platform NAS. The research of this paper focuses on Platform NAS and realizes the mechanical properties and performance of Platform NAS to effectively develop the system architecture for Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) businesses. At present, the applications of Platform NAS technology are still not fully unveiled. The research of this paper, from the business perspective, illustrates a new business operational dimension for SME that steeply cuts down the operational costs of hardware and software required by most SME businesses. From the technical perspective, the research is to experimentally reveal the advantages of NAS in the aspects of web hosting, file sharing, cloud services, email server, certified security and surveillance controls, and multimedia technologies, which are essential to SME. The results and evaluation of the paper demonstrate the real world and practical business cases under the NAS server, in which it significantly shows the contribution of the software architecture development, the amortization of the affordable business costs, and the provision of the reasonable and flexible operational security for SME sectors in the commercial cities in developing countries such as Hong Kong in Asia.