HOW CLOUD STORAGE WORKS

INDUSTRY EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON WHAT CLOUD STORAGE TRENDS SHOULD YOU EXPECT TO SEE

Data is increasingly getting digitised, and new workloads such as AI require enterprises to stay on top of their storage game.

According to a recent report from

Future Market Insights, the data storage market in the Middle East and Africa is forecast to total $5.65 billion this year.

Today, MEA data storage represents around 5 percent of the global data centre market. Though 65 percent of enterprise data remains on-premises, there is a big surge in cloud-based storage, which is beneficial in terms of cost, accessibility, recovery, and advanced security.

Is cloud storage most cost-effective than on-prem? The jury is still out on this one.

When it comes to deciding whether cloud storage or on-premise is more effective, it all depends on the needs of your business,” says Talal Shaikh, Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies for the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai. “Either option will have trade-offs, so managers should evaluate according to their requirements and be fully informed before deciding. Overall, most businesses will discover that the cloud is less expensive than on-premise infrastructure. However, it is worth noting that there are elements that impact the cost difference.”

Martin Tarr, Chief ICT Officer at du, adds that cloud propositions offer limitless scale, agility, and efficiency for larger volume deployments. Premise solutions can be specifically targeted toward a use case and present fixed and predictable pricing against a reliable performance.

“Depending on the use case and access frequency of the user data, a cloud solution can present hidden charges per GB such as Puts, Gets, Ingress and Egress charges which whilst seemingly

Talal Shaikh Martin Tarr Ramzi Itani

insignificant can often build into quite substantial costs for transactional requirement,” he says.

Ramzi Itani, Regional Director, Middle East, Veritas, offers a similar perspective: “Cloud storage offers a range of attractive benefits to businesses such as improved scalability, flexibility, and security. But even though cloud storage is becoming an increasingly popular today, it’s not always the most cost-effective option. Various factors will affect how much a business pays for both cloud and onpremise infrastructure. For example, the nature of their legacy systems and the volume and types of data to be stored will determine how much their storage costs.”

This is an interesting question with several elements involved in the response, says Patrick Smith, Field CTO EMEA, Pure Storage. “The cloud promises pay-as-you-go pricing that makes it an Opex running cost whereby reducing your data consumption lowers your cost. Often, levels of capacity and performance are not underwritten by SLAs which means costs can quickly spiral out of control as requirements change, forcing the consumption of more expensive services. Cost is one of the catalysts for adopting hybrid cloud architectures allowing applications to be hosted in the public cloud or private cloud based on suitability.”

He says that typically deploying storage in a private cloud means a Capex investment. Fortunately, another option has emerged, a potential bestof-both-worlds, Storage-as-a-service (STaaS). This consumption model turns storage procurement into a servicelike experience. Customers commit to a minimum capacity level, with a facility for extra “buffer” capacity and the ability to increase the minimum level if required. Monitoring allows the vendor to present a bill for storage used which means bills and usage are more predictable, especially without costly cloud peculiarities such as charges for egress or extras like snapshots which can mount up and result in unexpected costs. On top of all this, STaaS can be treated as a true Opex cost despite being on-prem.

Adrian Pickering, Regional General Manager, MENA, Red Hat, says cloud services—functionality that is hosted and managed in the cloud—provide a clean separation of the service’s features and effort that goes into administering the service. They provide the best of both worlds if you are looking at them through the lens of a development team under pressure—they provide the technology you want with none of the hassles of acquiring hardware, managing uptime, or updating software.

What are the key features to look for in a cloud storage service?

Selecting a cloud storage provider can be tricky because you need to establish specific and measurable evaluation criteria.

“Ultimately, the optimal storage strategy is one that aligns with the goals of the business. Organisations need to assess their existing environments, select the best infrastructure for the next stage of digital transformation, identify workloads that could run better in the cloud, and optimise the cloud mix for maximum efficiency,” says Tarek El Araby – Digital Solutions Director at Gulf Business Machines.

Some key features to consider in a cloud storage service are the costs, speed of access, backup and recovery capabilities, security and privacy policies, flexibility to scale, and application support and integration with other software. Accessibility is also important, as easy access to cloud data, without hidden fees, from different locations is essential for a hybrid workforce, he adds.

Smith from Pure Storage says core to consumption model offerings is the ability to deploy storage capacity on-site and be billed for consumption. The key to watch out for here is that this is truly being delivered as a service. Most vendors offer something that’s more like a leasing agreement, in which their products are deployed on a three, or five-year cycle, with forklift upgrades at the end. By contrast, the best STaaS offerings work to guaranteed service levels with automated upgrades to meet performance

and capacity guarantees without extra cost and which are triggered by AI-based monitoring and telemetry.

According to Shaikh from HeriotWatt, when it comes to cloud storage, the first thing to examine is its security. Cyberattacks will be one of the most significant dangers to organisations over the next decade, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2020. In today’s world, cybersecurity should be prioritised since compromise might result in significant losses.

“Furthermore, examine how effectively your cloud storage interfaces with other software solutions—for example, One Drive, Zoom, Microsoft, and other applications that your team often utilises. Furthermore, while comparing cloud storage services, data backup is an important element to consider. Depending on your job, you may need to be able to keep deleted data for a certain period of time. Finally, since many of us work remotely with foreign teams, collaboration elements must be considered. This includes the ability to collaborate on document creation, tag others to notify them of changes, and more,” he says.

Is cloud storage more secure?

Security takes many forms when thinking about storage; the security of the storage itself whereby data may be read or destroyed by criminals, the physical security of the whole environment or the consideration of vulnerabilities that may put storage and the associated data at risk.

“Misconfiguration and human error are often cited as the most common issues leading to leakage or malicious destruction of data in cloud storage environments. In addition, not understanding where your data resides may be considered a security issue given common concerns around data sovereignty and its impact on business regulations,” says Smith from Pure Storage.

Cloud providers are making massive investments around security; be that operations, software and services and the underlying technology infrastructure. Despite that, cloud storage customers need to take care to ensure they aren’t the cause of any security incidents as well as taking steps to recover data quickly if they suffer a breach, he adds.

Tarr from du adds: “With the availability of advanced encryption algorithm for data in motion and at rest, when deployed correctly, provides similar levels of security on cloud or on premise. The factors that differentiate premise to cloud are known as the residency and sovereignty of your data. For the majority of businesses this should not present issues, however where an organisation has sensitive data and strict compliance

Patrick Smith

ACCORDING TO RESEARCH CONDUCTED BY VERITAS LAST YEAR, ALMOST TWOTHIRDS (65%) OF THE OFFICE WORKERS SURVEYED IN THE UAE THINK DATA IN THE CLOUD IS SAFER FROM RANSOMWARE BECAUSE THEY ASSUME THEIR CLOUD PROVIDERS ARE PROTECTING IT. FURTHER, NEARLY ALL UAE-BASED RESPONDENTS (96%) THOUGHT THEIR CLOUD PROVIDER WOULD BE ABLE TO RESTORE THEIR FILES FOR THEM IF THEY WERE ACCIDENTALLY DELETED.

Adrian Pickering

requirements (government institutions), extra diligence should be performed as all cloud storage offerings may not meet such compliance standards.”

Misconceptions exist around where exactly the responsibility lies between the organisation and cloud provider when it comes to how their data is protected in the cloud.

According to research conducted by Veritas last year, almost two-thirds (65%) of the office workers surveyed in the UAE think data in the cloud is safer from ransomware because they assume their cloud providers are protecting it. Further, nearly all UAE-based respondents (96%) thought their cloud provider would be able to restore their files for them if they were accidentally deleted.

“Unfortunately, this is not the case. As part of their standard service, most cloud providers only provide guarantee of resiliency of their service, they do not provide guarantees that a customer, using their service, will have their data protected,” says Itani from Veritas.

In fact, many cloud providers even include shared-responsibly models in their terms and conditions, making it clear that protecting the data is the customer’s responsibility. Storing data in the cloud doesn’t automatically make it safe, it still needs strong data protection. That’s why we recommend working with a third party to ensure the data remains safe, he sums up.