Advantages Of On-Premises Software-Defined Object Storage

In recent years, the cloud has become fundamental support for many companies, which have been migrating their data, applications and services to cloud platforms. This has allowed significant progress in digitization and access to technologies whose cost of ownership was prohibitive for many organizations. Still, as companies scale their volume of data, specific problems have arisen that make it question whether to depend so much on providers. from the cloud. Many of these problems are related to the challenges digitized companies face and that the cloud is not solving as expected.

Among them is the need to reduce latency in data transmissions since there are delays in communications over the Internet and between the cloud providers’ infrastructure. For mission-critical applications, this may be unacceptable for many use cases. Another problem comes from the regulations on data sovereignty established by many countries, and cloud providers cannot always guarantee that the data is physically housed in data centers located within the established borders. And, if you need access to this information found abroad, new costs may arise for its transmission, and possible penalties may be incurred.

In another vein, the cloud has become one of the targets that cybercriminals focus on, and there have already been serious breaches of data stored by large cloud providers. Recent studies show that 40% of organizations have experienced cloud-hosted data breaches in the last 12 months, and many are very concerned about the potential risks ahead. Finally, there is the issue of cloud cost overruns. Although cloud storage prices are initially low, as the volume increases, higher rates are applied. If data access is frequent, additional costs are added, something that has attracted the attention of many customers in the last two years.

Faced with these challenges, many companies are beginning to rethink their data storage strategy again. Leaving the cloud is unthinkable today and probably in the future, but combining the cloud with on-premises container storage can bring many benefits. As DCIG experts explain in a recent article, the increased cost of scaling cloud storage is not sustainable in the long term. It puts pressure on margins that, in many cases, are impossible to align with business goals. As a result, on-premises or hybrid cloud object storage solutions are beginning to be perceived as the best option in the future for many businesses. The main reason is cost.

Responding To The Growth Of Unstructured Data

Object storage technology provides a perfect way to deal with the exponential growth of unstructured data, and local storage can be a great way to tackle the problem. This data on-premises can be quickly moved from cold storage to a live location intended to ensure faster access, and a more efficient, organized, and higher-performing primary storage infrastructure can be achieved.

High-Performance Object Storage

Many organizations are moving to data-intensive applications that require a high-performance storage platform. Cloud services can provide this for applications in the cloud, but not for those running on-premises or at the edge, where response needs to be immediate. Therefore, having object storage on-premises is vital to enable high-performance use cases, such as those that rely on unstructured data for IoT device network management, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, or machine learning.

Guaranteed Data Sovereignty

Ensuring compliance with data sovereignty regulations is becoming very difficult for companies that host large volumes of data in the cloud in the form of objects. Although cloud providers are trying to expand their IT footprint in regions such as Europe, they do not always guarantee that data is physically within the borders established by law. On the contrary, storing objects locally allows 100% data sovereignty to be certified and applying data protection strategies that comply with current regulations.

More Efficient Edge Computing

Object storage is the most effective way to host data from IoT devices, cameras, sensors, and other devices used in many industries and run applications locally using edge computing applications. In these cases, having local object storage is the best way to guarantee the performance of these applications, which in most cases feed on unstructured data, and whose operation must be in real-time or near real-time.

Cloud-Native Workloads

Many companies use on-premises object storage to develop, test and deploy applications for cloud computing architecture. These cloud-native workloads can run anywhere—in the data center, on edge, or in the cloud—but building them on-premises allows developers to more easily and quickly resolve issues before the transition to the final environment, without depending on the availability of cloud resources. And, by having reliable local storage, it is possible to move these applications to this environment to work on them when necessary.

More Benefits With Software-Defined Object Storage

Many companies have changed the focus on their IT infrastructure, adopting software-defined data center solutions, which allow storage, computing, and network resources to be managed in a more versatile and efficient way through their abstraction and virtualization. This provides new capabilities that, if possible, are greater in the case of object storage. DCIG experts highlight that software-defined storage solutions allow more flexible vertical and horizontal scalability, which helps to adapt more dynamically to the needs of each moment.

In addition, SDS solutions achieve greater efficiency and energy savings than traditional storage systems and allow the useful life of existing storage media to be increased. Finally, they highlight that software-defined storage provides significant advantages in data management, permissions and costs and offers new opportunities to improve performance and optimize the use of an organization’s data repositories.