Storing Up in Clouds

Cloud based storage is seen as the way forward for liberating from a range of
complexities associated with storage. At this point, many see cloud storage as a
complimentary technology which will be used as per the unique requirements. The
area in which cloud will bring defined benefits is managing the storage
resources judiciously. Making storage as a service and at the same time gaining
control on aspects like backup is what cloud storage promises.

We are All in

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer in a talk in the US recently said about the cloud,
"We are all in." This meant nobody can ignore the cloud. Trends at this point of
time suggest that in 2010, organizations of all sizes will put in place a cloud
strategy. Since IT infrastructure is a major pain area, most enterprises will
look at ways and means to move some of the in-premise infrastructure offsite and
opt for a multiple cloud combination like public, private or a hybrid cloud
model.

Experts suggest that any organization considering cloud computing, whether
it's within the IT organization or as a public services provider, they should
look at agile cloud technologies that can accelerate and simplify the adoption
of enterprise cloud computing environment. In a storage environment, closer
scrutiny must be done on the solutions' ability to create the most integrated
set of computing resources that create a single pool of virtualized block, file
and content storage to support the diverse uses that cloud computing has today
and enable organizations to adopt cloud services at their own pace. As part of
the new agile cloud demands, one should also look at the ability of the platform
to provide security, reliability and multi-tenancy for cloud infrastructures.

Moreover in a storage cloud, it is important to look at the virtualization
capabilities. It is important because with sophisticated virtualization
capabilities, a secure, multi-tenant environ-ment, that ensures privacy among
various constituents within a shared infrastructure that can be managed from a
single command suite, can be created. Also, one should look at the support for a
variety

of protocols and third party technology. Storage administrators can further
leverage the existing investments in hardware and software, and allow legacy
devices to inherit cloud attributes. This would prevent cloud from becoming just
another silo; thus, eliminating the need for a complete refresh or update of
hardware and software, or the need to rewrite applications. As a result, a good
cloud solution will enable enterprises to choose the best possible technologies
to address the challenges, and it will be within the enterprises' budget. So, an
integrated set of cloud solutions can deliver an agile cloud infrastructure that
empowers one to look at the existing IT infrastructure in innovative and cost
effective ways of managing it.

Why Cloud Storage

According to experts, the need for cloud storage stems from the fact that it
leads to data growth and periodic invest-ments in managing it.

Spends on data management happened even in the weak economic scenario.
Industry analysts say that in fact, for some businesses, data growth is
accelerating at this time as more and more organizations use analytics to find
new revenue opportunities, or ways to tweak the business model to drive top and
bottom line growth.

Cloud based storage is seen as a panacea for storage woes because traditional
storage technologies were not designed for use in the multi-petabyte scale
Internet era. With traditional storage architectures, new arrays need to be
added as capacity requirements increase. As the number of arrays under
management grow, the storage environment becomes increasingly complex, harder to
manage, and more costly to operate. This brings negative consequences to the
business, increased time to market, loss of productivity, and decreased
flexibility. Traditional storage technologies continue to excel in the areas
they were designed to address, namely transactional and distributed computing,
but these solutions fall short at the Internet scale. The pressure to reduce
operating costs and do more with less has never been higher, especially in the
face of accelerated data growth. IT is facing limited capital budgets and
running out of floor space, power, and cooling capacity. These factors are
driving users to consider new storage deployment models like cloud storage.

Unique Solutions

Since cloud is an emerging technology and applying it to domain specific
requirements calls for careful planning and the right selection of solutions
that meet the unique requirements. CIOs can select the right solutions by
looking at the vendor's portfolio and go beyond point-products. This makes them
go for vendors' offerings which are designed to be a part of a broader scenario
like the ability to manage multiple storage tiers to balance resource
utilization and meet defined service levels, and the ability to migrate data
dynamically and automatically across storage tiers.

So clearly, cloud storage is an important development which if rightly
deployed brings in high storage utilization. It makes storage resources
available on demand and makes aspects like provisioning, backup and archiving
much easier.

Looking at the benefits despite the concept of cloud storage in its infancy,
the value enterprises accrue by adopting cloud storage is indeed compelling. The
benefits are big and this is due to the fact that the storage cloud will
integrate and virtualize the key storage elements like disks and controllers,
enable capacity planning to scalability and reduce the overall TCO and
manageability costs. The enterprise storage cloud brings a lot of benefits and
intelligent management features. It is seen as the next major step in managing
diverse storage environments using either private or a public cloud. While cloud
computing itself is a macro concept and its further maturing is manifesting in
specialized services such as 'storage cloud.' Specialized cloud services need
good delivery and solution ecosystem, and vendors who have good solution breadth
and delivery will gain most out of the storage cloud business.

The emergence of specialized clouds is seen as a good development for
enterprises as it brings in greater utilization of storage assets leading to
bigger RoI and lesser TCO. For instance, achieving storage RoI is one big
challenge for enterprises. It depends on creating effective storage
architecture, hence, needs to factor in lots of best practices so that economics
can be achieved. By adopting cloud, some analysts feel organizations can achieve
higher storage economics. Storage economics is all about creating a fine balance
between storage spends and the actual requirements so that one arrives at
greater RoI due to optimal use of the assets. Experts aver that there are proven
strategic and tactical investments for storage infrastructure cost reduction and
cloud storage is seen as one among them.

Shrikanth G

(Source: DQ)