What are the strategies for cloud storage in the future?

Abstract: Increasing demand for storage is prompting many companies to switch to cloud services. However, it is critical to ensure that cloud storage has an appropriate architecture, and thus its security, performance, and scalability.

Growing demand for storage is prompting many companies to switch to cloud services. However, it is critical to ensure that cloud storage has an appropriate architecture, and thus its security, performance, and scalability.

In view of the mismanagement, replication regulatory requirements and the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) faced by enterprises to copy data; at the same time, the current enterprise data storage volume is still showing an exponential growth trend, and this growth trend There was no sign of weakening. Making limited resources to manage the current huge storage needs has become the biggest challenge facing many enterprises. To alleviate this burden, many enterprise organizations have begun to switch to cloud services.

According to a recent market survey conducted by market research organization 451 Research on members of the Global Digital Infrastructure Alliance, more and more enterprise organizations currently adopt off-site off-site storage models. Of the 647 enterprise technology and IT professionals surveyed, nearly 35% of the respondents said that their company is considering purchasing cloud-based storage immediately. Although only 20% is currently stored in the cloud, investigators estimate that within the next two years, one-third of enterprises will adopt public cloud services or in SaaS environments.

There are multiple reasons for this growth. Many enterprise organizations will turn to cloud storage as an efficient or low-cost location for storing inactive or archived data, because this data information is not the most important for latency and security requirements. As the usage of cloud services has generally increased, enterprises' interest in cloud storage has also increased.

However, as is typical of cloud computing, this growth and expansion are mostly based on demand. Many cloud migrations are the result of enterprise SaaS deployment or shadow IT. Such cloud policies are just an afterthought. In addition, typical SaaS deployments rarely interact with infrastructure, and the involvement of enterprise IT teams is usually limited to ensuring the maintenance of security. With the underlying complexity of SaaS providers being abstracted out, SaaS providers rarely take into account the management policies of enterprises.

The result: many traditional businesses that have not established a strategy to manage their growing critical data in the cloud have adopted a hodgepodge of reactive cloud storage methods.

Independently assess cloud and storage needs

According to a survey by 451 Research, today, only 16% of the respondents said that their company stores data in more than half of its total storage capacity offsite. In the next two years, this number is expected to increase to 26%. With the overall increase in storage, this increase is undoubtedly quite significant.

Once a basic strategy has been formulated, it is time to assess cloud storage needs. Hill recommends using a cloud storage decision tree to determine whether to store in the cloud, or deploy within the enterprise, or use a combination of both to store enterprise data is the best solution.

We suggest that business organizations may start with the following three questions:

What are the applications supported by your enterprise (is it a SaaS; is it cloud-based; or is it based on on-premises deployment?) How much do you support these applications?

What are the performance requirements and other needs of the application? For example, latency is one of the big problems, which directly affects whether your company has reached the service level agreement (SLA).

Two ways to cut costs

Many companies are turning to cloud computing to save money. Although this move may reduce capital expenditures on equipment and other aspects, cloud storage will increase other costs and may not even save the total cost.

However, many public cloud service providers achieved significant cost reductions in 2016, and similar price reductions are expected this year. It is worthwhile to take the time to re-examine the costs your enterprise pays for storage and whether these storage services meet or exceed your enterprise ’s e-needs, and then renegotiate contracts.

Hill said that when evaluating costs, companies should consider bandwidth and data migration issues. The price of data storage may be low, but once the migration begins, the cost will rise.

Don't ignore scalability

Although scalability is integrated into the basic architecture of cloud services, it should not be ignored. Scalability is one of the main driving forces driving enterprises to move to cloud computing. According to 451 Research, 62% of respondents said that cloud and SaaS-based services are easier to scale than traditional products. Object-based storage models that support cloud systems support their scalability, but these systems must also integrate with on-premises deployments that use different models. The ultimate measure of scalability will be largely a question of how to successfully implement integrated functions.

Scalability requirements vary by enterprise organization, and the ability of storage service providers to meet the needs of enterprise customers is key. If an enterprise ’s storage needs are stable, the ability to increase or decrease storage as needed may not be a key standard for cloud providers, and may even increase the attractiveness of enterprise private cloud deployments.

Enterprises are increasingly implementing appropriate cloud storage strategies for companies to continue to provide products and services to meet customer needs, innovation and business development is crucial. For many companies, finding the right cloud storage will allow them to find the best partner in this process. But before looking for a suitable enterprise as a partner, an enterprise organization should have a good understanding of the needs of performance, integration, security, and scalability to meet its SLA, and thus meet and expand its customer base.

If you want to know more, our website has product specifications for cloud storage, you can go to ALLICDATA ELECTRONICS LIMITED to get more information