A series on cloud technology versus localized software-defined storage
Definitely impactful trends – but is cloud migration an absolute strategy? Not necessarily, particularly as there is healthy debate about what can be disseminated and stored to a public cloud, or even kept in a hybrid environment. Concerns over privacy, access, control, security, and capabilities are warranted, given the ever increasing volumes of data and information to be safely managed. The reality is that moving everything to the cloud may not be the only answer.
A pragmatic alternative is a localized offering, yet concerns related to costs, maintenance, and capacity act as roadblocks to serious consideration. In reality, cost advantages can be gained with storage close to the source—such as reducing maintenance staff, improving data reliability and security, and addressing physical challenges of latency and bandwidth in transmitting data. This is particularly true for firms requiring meaningful, time-sensitive analytics. In these cases it is vital that both the application and high performance storage capacity are in close proximity.
High capacity storage is often pushed to the cloud because of a perceived cost advantage. What’s different now, however, is the advent of software-defined storage or hyperconvergence. Storage on-site is much less complex and much more relevant. For more insight, read Dedicated Computing’s article on this topic, originally published in eeCatalog.
