The ROI of an archive project sounds good on paper. Implement archive, get near instant recalls of moved data, and reduce storage footprint by 85% or more. The problem is no archive implementation really does that. In our latest white paper, Storage Switzerland explains the roadblocks to a complete archiving strategy, how the process needs to change, and then looks at public cloud storage to see if it can get IT archiving.
Register to our on demand webinar, “Cloud Archiving – Amazon Glacier, Microsoft Azure or Something Else?” and get our white paper, “Leveraging the Cloud to Create Archive as a Service”.
The Archive Reality
The problem archive solutions face is while 85% of data in the typical data center is inactive, that data is already stored on storage that is bought and paid for. Even if the organization moves all that data to the archive storage system, it is unlikely that the organization will then throw the current storage system away. Instead, what makes more sense is that IT will want to archive just enough data to free up primary storage capacity so it doesn’t have to buy new capacity or a new storage system. The problem with this approach is the organization has a half empty archive storage tier, reducing the ROI, significantly.
The Cloud Reality
The cloud is an ideal answer and there are plenty of options available. While cloud storage is increasingly competitive to data center storage, the cloud by itself is just an infrastructure. Archiving is a process (a long-term one at that). So, the organization is going to need more services wrapped around that cloud.
IT needs a solution that leverages the right cloud storage option to deliver a complete process they can grow into over time. Our white paper is a great place to start to help with that design, and our webinar will give the opportunity to dive deeper, and answer your specific questions about using the cloud for archiving.
George Crump is the Chief Marketing Officer at VergeIO, the leader in Ultraconverged Infrastructure. Prior to VergeIO he was Chief Product Strategist at StorONE. Before assuming roles with innovative technology vendors, George spent almost 14 years as the founder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland. In his spare time, he continues to write blogs on Storage Switzerland to educate IT professionals on all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought-after public speaker. With over 30 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS, SAN, Virtualization, Cloud, and Enterprise Flash. Before founding Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest storage integrators, where he was in charge of technology testing, integration, and product selection.
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