During a recent webinar that Storage Switzerland held with Avere Systems, the audience was asked what their top concerns were when using cloud storage. Not surprisingly, the majority of the respondents stated “performance” and “security”. In fact, anecdotally we have heard from some users about their frustration with the inconsistent performance from some cloud based applications. As a result, many organizations are taking more of a hybrid approach to cloud computing, whereby performance sensitive applications and their data are maintained on-premises while inactive data sets (typically backup) are parked in cloud storage repositories for storage efficiency.
Performance Security
But cloud security also remains a hot-button issue given all the attention that was given in recent months to the fact that major internet juggernauts like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo disclosed that they had relinquished access to user accounts so that intelligence organizations could mine this data. As a result, this has had a chilling effect on the willingness of some organizations to utilize the cloud as a data repository.
Avere Systems CEO, Ron Bianchini discussed how their Cloud NAS platform satisfies both the need for local high performance while providing businesses with a safe and secure way to exploit low-cost cloud storage resources. What’s more, through their Global Namespace, Avere’s Cloud NAS can seamlessly stitch together both on-premises and cloud based storage resources so that they can be effectively managed as a single pool of storage that is totally transparent to end-users.
Living on the Edge-Core
Avere’s “Edge-Core” architecture combined with their AES-256 bit encryption key management is what makes this possible. First, by deploying the Cloud NAS in the data center, organizations can offload, by a factor of 50:1, storage IO requests from their existing NAS storage assets. This allows the Cloud NAS to function as the performance tier while legacy NAS (Netapp, EMC, etc.) systems can be re-purposed to function as a “capacity” tier of storage. Secondly, by integrating the necessary API sets to talk to cloud storage services like Amazon’s S3, directly into the Cloud NAS, businesses can implement a turn-key ready onramp to low-cost cloud storage. This helps drive performance for IO hungry applications while helping organizations drive down their storage costs.
Blocking Big Brother
From a security standpoint, the Cloud NAS employs security hardened AES-256 bit encryption for all data at rest and importantly, all the key management is automatically managed by the Cloud NAS itself. That means that even if cloud providers are subpoenaed by big brother, they won’t be able to disclose any of your sensitive data as it will be completely locked down.
For more information on how Avere’s Cloud NAS can be your ticket to improved storage performance and low cost cloud storage, please click on the following link. By registering with BrightTalk, you will never have to re-register again and you will gain access to over 100 Storage Switzerland webcasts. Registrants will also receive an advanced copy of our product analysis on the Avere Cloud NAS.
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Avere Systems is a client of Storage Switzerland
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As a 22 year IT veteran, Colm has worked in a variety of capacities ranging from technical support of critical OLTP environments to consultative sales and marketing for system integrators and manufacturers. His focus in the enterprise storage, backup and disaster recovery solutions space extends from mainframe and distributed computing environments across a wide range of industries.
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