2. Healthcare Data Storage Options Using Cloud

Modern healthcare systems are more and more complex today as they involve EHR applications, mobile applications, and IoT system integration. They typically generate a large volume of data on a daily basis, whereby the storage of the healthcare big data becomes challenging especially data from IoT connected devices. Traditional on-premise storage is not scalable enough. Cloud computing is a good option for storing healthcare big data as it is scalable, secure, reliable, provides ubiquitous access, and is highly available. In this chapter, the different storage media used to store data are described and the different storage mechanisms such as file storage, block storage, and object storage are discussed. Object storage is being increasingly adopted for storing healthcare Big data as it is more scalable, cost-effective, secure and reliable, and more suitable for data analytics. Blockchain technology is also being investigated for the healthcare industry. The use of blockchain for storing data on the cloud is also discussed, and the security of the data stored on cloud storage is described.