Posted by Marc Farley on Wed, Dec 12, 2012 @ 08:52 AM
The term "hybrid cloud" has been defined many different ways. At Microsoft hybrid cloud refers to data center functionality that spans on-premises and cloud service boundaries. At least that's how I'm understanding it now after having been part of the company for a few weeks. To clarify my perspective, my appreciation of cloud is slotted narrowly into IAAS functionality and the things that are likely to appeal to data center types. In this context hybrid cloud services will augment the things that customers are already doing on-premises with the cloud offloading tasks and workloads that are under-served on-premises. Where data center operations are concerned, the cloud represents a new kind of enterprise plug-in. If you think this sounds like poppycock, keep reading because I'll tell you how it is already being used this way every day by a growing number of companies.
One of the misunderstandings people have about enterprise cloud storage is that it must be similar to consumer file sharing apps like Dropbox, Box or Microsoft's own SkyDrive. To begin with, much of enterprise storage works on block processes and if you are going to offload enterprise storage you need to provide block-level functionality. As for file sharing, data center managers are not looking to share corporate data as much as they are to secure it. BTW, I fully expect to get comments here about the great virtues of file sharing for enterprises. Rest assured, there are probably few companies who use the cloud for file sharing as much as Microsoft does internally with SkyDrive and SharePoint, but that's not what I'm discussing here in this post.
StorSimple developed technology called Cloud-integrated Storage (CiS) that is implemented as a SAN appliance that acts like a hybrid cloud storage plug-in for enterprise storage. CiS packages and indexes blocks along with accompanying metadata and stores them in the cloud. These block packages may be generated by snapshots or as archives that need to be stored for an extended period of time or as dormant unstructured data that is no longer being accessed and can be vacated to reclaim on-premises storage capacity. Different customers use this technology every day because their backup systems are under-serving them, their archiving processes are too cumbersome and they don't want to use tier 1 storage for data that is no longer active. The thing that is a little bit hard for some to understand about CiS is that the data transfers to the cloud are all automated, requiring no effort on the part of system and storage administrators.
The other key to understanding the plug-in nature of CiS is that the ability to access and download data from cloud storage is also transparent because data in the cloud is either viewable in an online file system or mountable as a snapshot the same way local snapshots are mounted for restoring older versions of files. I'll explain how that all works in future blog posts, but for now I'll say it's a function of the metadata system in CiS.
Cloud-integrated Storage really is different. It breaks the mold for enterprise storage by seamlessly integrating on-premises enterprise storage with Windows Azure Storage services and the incredibly valuable Geo Redundant Storage it provides. CiS doesn't do everything you might want it to, but the things it does well are revolutionary.
FYI: This blog post is a shortened version of a white paper that was published by StorSimple. Click (opens in a new window)
Note: This blog post first appeared on the Microsoft TechNet blog, Hybrid Cloud Storage
Posted by Marc Farley on Thu, May 24, 2012 @ 07:55 PM
Our customer Dan Streufert from MedPlast flew into Dallas on a day when there were tornadoes touching down throughout the Metroplex to present at SNW Spring 2012 about cloud storage and their experience using cloud-integrated storage from StorSimple.
As an OEM manufacturer for the medical device industry, Medplast needed a comprehensive archive solution to store historical records. What they found was primary storage that included deduplication, compression, encryption, automated storage tiering (including tiering to the cloud) and integrated data protection that replaced their tape-based system with cloud snapshots. They also appreciate how disaster recover protection is integrated as well and that their cloud service provider fulfills the role of the DR site. It's a lot of stuff and MedPlast is taking advantage of all of it.
We appreciate our customers and are very glad to continue working with people like Dan who are so enthusiastic about the technology we are building.Here is the video:
Posted by Marc Farley on Fri, Mar 02, 2012 @ 12:38 PM
StorSimple customers like the fact that our systems do things for them that with legacy storage would take either a lot of time or a lot of money. Sundance Institute, the people who run the Sundance Film Festival, are StorSimple customers who have simplified their operations by streamlining backup and avoided buying storage they don't really need.
Justin Simmons is a long-time IT professional and the associate director of Technology Services for the Sundance Institute. If you didn't click on the link above, here is a quote of his that sums it up pretty well.
“StorSimple has freed up a lot of resources on our existing storage, so we are able to delay or potentially entirely put off what would have been a very expensive new SAN purchase, and instead of spending potentially half her time managing backups, our system administrator is no longer buried under a backup storage shell game. With StorSimple backing up straight to the cloud, she can now use her time to work on new projects and new initiatives for the Sundance Institute.”
