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Hybrid Cloud Storage

  • Article

Organizations in the last several years have experienced a rapid growth in their data. This is mainly fueled by the new paradigm shift in computing, such as social, mobile, big data, and of course the web presence. This brings a new set of storage challenges where the traditional, “on premises” storage model may no longer be suitable to address.

When it comes to storage, there are many layers to it, such as:

  • Primary storage for your active applications
  • Archival storage and less frequently accessed data
  • Backup that involve tapes
  • Disaster recovery site where the data is replicated
  • Data that is shipped to an offsite facility for long term backup purposes

As you can see, how all of these many layers of storage can increase data management complexity and cost.

There is a better solution – Hybrid Cloud Storage. It is a cloud hybrid concept which helps you optimize and prioritize your storage needs based on your active and in-active, less frequently accessed data. To simplify the concept, lets compare the traditional on premises storage with the Hybrid Cloud Storage model.

Traditional Storage

Your servers are using SAN for storage –> snapshots are created –>data gets backed up to VTL (virtual tape library) or NAS –> data then gets backed up to tape –> data is then shipped to offsite facility for long term storage.

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Hybrid Cloud Storage

Your servers are using SAN for storage –> snapshots are created –> data is copied to the nearest cloud storage region –> another copy is replicated to a remote cloud storage for disaster recovery.

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As you can see, in the hybrid cloud storage scenario, you don’t really need to take backups of the data to VTL and tapes and also don’t need to send it to the offsite facility for long term storage. Your data is getting backed up to the cloud at the same time your active, frequently access data is locally available in the StorSimple storage device for quick access. This results in the following benefits:

  • Less equipment and hardware thus reduced TCO
  • A single solution for consolidating your primary, backup, and disaster recovery storage

StorSimple Storage Device

The Azure Hybrid Cloud Storage utilizes the StorSimple SAN device to store the active data locally and to store the in-active, less frequently data in the Cloud. It is an Enterprise class iSCSI SAN device and provides the following features:

  • Full redundancy that allows for hot swaps and non-disruptive upgrades
  • Data auto-tiering utilizing SSD for the most active and SAS for the less active data, and Cloud for archiving
  • Automatic data snapshots to the Cloud and copying the same data to another the remote Cloud storage for disaster recovery
  • Quick data restore using the snapshots
  • Thin provisioning
  • Data de-duplication
  • Data encryption

To learn more about Hybrid Cloud Storage, click here.