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Storage on Demand Offers Cloud-Like Agility, On-Premises Control
by
Sheetal
In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a many-headed serpent that could grow two new heads whenever one was cut off. Enterprise data storage is much like this monstrous creature. Adding capacity to address data growth creates administrative headaches, and ties up ever-increasing amounts of capital in storage equipment.
These factors have driven the growth of cloud storage, which allows organizations to purchase resources without owning infrastructure. The cloud relieves much of the administrative burden given that the service provider manages and maintains the environment. In theory, the cloud also makes it possible to scale resources up or down on demand ” although there can be significant limitations.
In some cases, you must commit to some minimum level of storage. If you need more than that, you naturally pay for additional capacity. But what if you need less than your contracted baseline? Sometimes, you can wind up paying a penalty if you use less than was estimated at the beginning of the agreement.
In other cases, you may not want to lock into a baseline. In an application development environment, for example, you may need to rapidly scale up or down depending on your development and testing cycles. A cloud provider can give you that flexibility but youre going to pay a premium for it.
Data security and privacy also remain a concern in the cloud. Although cloud providers typically have stronger security policies and practices than all but the largest enterprises, theres always a chance that sensitive data could be vulnerable. In addition, you have to worry about where the storage is physically located in order to meet data governance and regulatory compliance requirements.
NetApp is offering an alternative with a pay-as-you-go storage strategy that provides both adaptability and control. Using a combination of cloud-connected delivery models and innovative financing, NetApp OnDemand gives you the capacity you need without purchasing equipment that may only temporarily meet your requirements.
NetApp OnDemand is a significant departure from other on-demand storage solutions. It combines the benefits of on-premises infrastructure, the flexibility of a usage-based consumption model, and the agility of the public cloud. A key differentiator is that NetApp retains ownership of equipment installed, and simply delivers the necessary storage capacity.
You can choose to have the equipment installed on-premises or in a colocation facility. In addition, NetApp Private Storage (NPS) for Cloud lets you store data on your own storage systems inside a cloud-connected facility, giving you access to cloud storage resources while maintaining complete control over your data.
The NPS private cloud can be connected to cloud providers such as AWS and Azure for on-demand scalability. This connection is made through the Equinix Cloud Exchange, an advanced interconnection solution that enables on-demand, direct network connectivity to multiple cloud providers.
The pay-per-consumption model for storage makes sense for almost any organization because it creates budget flexibility. By shifting storage from a capital expense to an operating expense, organizations can right-size storage while aligning spending with business needs.
Unlike other on-demand solutions where you might wind up buying more capacity than you need, you pay only for what you use with NetApp OnDemand. Contact Rahi Systems to learn more about this unique solution.
Ms. Sheetal is an independent data center consultant and has 15+ years of experience in this industry. She has been writing several articles on data center hardware and networking in order to help b2b firms find better solution providers and stay updated in the industry. She is presently associated with 5 leading data center solution providers.For more details, please visit one of her associated firms here