An illustrative storage management appliance is interposed between client computing devices and one or more cloud storage resources. The appliance uses cloud storage resources in conjunction with a network attached storage device configured within the appliance to provide to the client computing devices seemingly unlimited network attached storage on respective network shares. The storage management appliance monitors data objects on the network shares and when a data object meets one or more criteria for archiving, the storage management appliance archives the data object to a cloud storage resource and replaces it with a stub and preview image on the network share. When access to the stub and/or preview image is detected, the storage management appliance restores the data object from the cloud storage resource. The criteria for archiving flexibly allow individual data objects to be archived to cloud storage without archiving frequently-accessed “neighboring” data objects on the same network share.

An illustrative storage management appliance is interposed between client computing devices and one or more cloud storage resources. The appliance uses cloud storage resources in conjunction with a network attached storage device configured within the appliance to provide to the client computing devices seemingly unlimited network attached storage on respective network shares. The storage management appliance monitors data objects on the network shares and when a data object meets one or more criteria for archiving, the storage management appliance archives the data object to a cloud storage resource and replaces it with a stub and preview image on the network share. When access to the stub and/or preview image is detected, the storage management appliance restores the data object from the cloud storage resource. The criteria for archiving flexibly allow individual data objects to be archived to cloud storage without archiving frequently-accessed “neighboring” data objects on the same network share.

Techniques are described herein for generating network topologies based on models, and deploying the network topologies across hybrid clouds and other computing environments that include multiple workload resource domains. A topology deployment system may receive data representing a logical topology model, and may generate a network topology for deployment based on the logical model. The network topology may include various services and/or other resources provided by different tenants in the computing environment, and tenant may be associated with different set of resources and deployment constraints. The topology deployment system may determine and generate the network topology to use the various resources and comply with various deployment constraints of the different tenants providing the services, and the tenants consuming the network topology.

Systems and methods are described for providing rapid access to data objects stored in a cache. Rather than storing data objects directly, each object can be broken into a number of parts via erasure coding, which enables the object to be generated from less than all parts. When servicing a request for the data object, a device can attempt to retrieve all parts, but begin to generate the data object as soon as a sufficient number of parts is retrieved, even if requests for other parts are outstanding. In this way, the data object can be retrieved without delay due to the slowest requests. For example, where one or more requests timeout, such as due to failure of cache devices, this timeout may have no effect on time required to retrieve the data object from the cache.

In some implementations, a device may receive file location information identifying a file to be transferred to a user device associated with the first network provider, wherein the file location information identifies a domain name associated with a second network provider. The device may provide, based on the file location information, a request to obtain one or more records associated with the domain name. The device may receive the one or more records based on the request. The device may selectively obtain, based on the one or more records, the file from a first content device associated with the second network provider or from a second content device associated with a third-party provider. The device may provide the file to the user device.

In some implementations, a device may receive file location information identifying a file to be transferred to a user device associated with the first network provider, wherein the file location information identifies a domain name associated with a second network provider. The device may provide, based on the file location information, a request to obtain one or more records associated with the domain name. The device may receive the one or more records based on the request. The device may selectively obtain, based on the one or more records, the file from a first content device associated with the second network provider or from a second content device associated with a third-party provider. The device may provide the file to the user device.

A method of recording layer-2 (L2) mappings created for workloads executing on a plurality of hosts in a first database managed by a network management server: upon receipt of a first mapping reported by a first host, determining that the first mapping is not recorded in the first database; and in response to the determining that the received first mapping is not recorded in the first database, generating a first timestamp and persisting a first record in the first database that includes the first mapping and the first timestamp.

A method of recording layer-2 (L2) mappings created for workloads executing on a plurality of hosts in a first database managed by a network management server: upon receipt of a first mapping reported by a first host, determining that the first mapping is not recorded in the first database; and in response to the determining that the received first mapping is not recorded in the first database, generating a first timestamp and persisting a first record in the first database that includes the first mapping and the first timestamp.

A device, system and method controlling operation of a client device via an intermediation server are provided. The server maintains indications of predefined data descriptions, associated with respective provider systems, comprising a subset of given predefined data descriptions to be provided at a client device during implementation of a computing-process flow in conjunction with communicating with the respective provider systems. The server: provides, to the respective provider systems, a communication from the client device received in conjunction with implementing a given step of the computing-process flow; and receives, from a given provider system, a response to the communication. The server provides, to the client device: the response; and a predefined data description associated with the given provider system in the indications, the predefined data description provided at the client device in conjunction with the response causing the client device to implement the predefined data description, according to the computing-process flow.

A device, system and method controlling operation of a client device via an intermediation server are provided. The server maintains indications of predefined data descriptions, associated with respective provider systems, comprising a subset of given predefined data descriptions to be provided at a client device during implementation of a computing-process flow in conjunction with communicating with the respective provider systems. The server: provides, to the respective provider systems, a communication from the client device received in conjunction with implementing a given step of the computing-process flow; and receives, from a given provider system, a response to the communication. The server provides, to the client device: the response; and a predefined data description associated with the given provider system in the indications, the predefined data description provided at the client device in conjunction with the response causing the client device to implement the predefined data description, according to the computing-process flow.