Enterprise IT organizations are facing a shifting set of data requirements regarding both the storage and accessibility of information. As IT requirements evolve, new technologies, techniques, and practices are required for enterprises to implement an effective storage strategy. Traditionally, organizations have stored the bulk of their data in on-premises datacenters requiring large hardware acquisitions, maintanence, and eventual upgrades. The rapid rise in the use of clouds has significantly changed this strategy.
Since the introduction of the public cloud, organizations have increasingly looked to implement some form of a cloud strategy, whether fully utilizing public cloud or in a hybrid capacity to offset their use of on-premises data storage. The public cloud offers increased flexibility for both economic and operational needs. While the public cloud has shifted data storage strategies out of a datacenter-only approach, many organizations have also found public cloud storage offerings to be unsustainable as a primary storage solution. Despite the promise of a flexible cost structure, the cost of data access can become prohibitively expensive due to egress fees.
Along with fundamental changes in how data is being stored, organizations have also seen a shift in the structure, access, and security characteristics demanded of their data. Enterprises have increasing needs for file based storage as the amount of unstructured data grows. At the same time, data access requirements have changed with organizations spreading out globally. Remote workers have become more common, further stressing data access requirements to enable collaboration between remote entities. Additionally, the importance of data protection continues to grow as threats of ransomware and other malicious attacks become more prevalent.
These changing storage needs place additional stress on IT organizations and reveal weaknesses of both on-premises and public cloud storage. On-premises storage becomes limiting to the collaboration of remote teams and increased data protection requires additional infrastructure and maintainance. Public cloud options can become exceedingly expensive when used as primary storage and the offerings available from cloud providers may be lacking the features crucial to servicing organizations’ storage needs as a primary option, such as data reduction, or the performance of local storage.
The desire for organizations to move data off on-premises datacenters combined with the impracticality of full public cloud implementations opens the door for new, more balanced approaches to fulfill storage requirements for enterprise customers. One approach that is well positioned to address these changing storage needs is the Global File System. CTERA provides a Global File System solution with the proper features and characteristics required to provide an effective solution to balance the tradeoffs between on-premises and cloud storage while providing enhanced data access and collaboration for remote workers.
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