Optical Archiving in the Cloud – Sustaining the Data Monster

Grazed from ITBusiness.net. Author: Yasuhiro Tai.

Online applications such as Facebook and Twitter, paired with smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices have given us everywhere access to our content and content sharing capabilities. They have also enabled wonderfully convenient solutions to help us communicate and stay connected whenever and wherever we decide. But they have simultaneously created a multitude of nightmarish issues for the IT managers that are responsible for the care and feeding of these data monsters.

Because of appealing characteristics such as low cost/GB and anytime/anywhere access, the internet is being used more and more to store data and run applications, replacing traditional tangible servers with private, hybrid and public cloud computing. As a result of this trend, Gartner has predicted that more than one-third of global digital content will ultimately be stored in the cloud by 2016…

Key Benefits and Problems with the Cloud

There are many solid reasons to consider implementing a cloud-based data archive, including the ability to pay only for what you need to use, rather than being forced to upgrade in large capacity jumps as you add hardware to the overall archival system. In addition, because the archive is stored and maintained outside of the organization, fewer in-house IT staff are required and other associated data warehouse costs (including real estate, electricity, A/C) are reduced. Finally, implementing cloud-based data archive services provides authorized personnel with remote access to stored data and applications, regardless of where they are working. However, there is a downside. Some key problem areas to consider before porting over all of your organization?s valuable data resources to the clouds include availability, security, performance and compliance…

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