Cloud storage is not perfect

Many news hype claims that cloud storage is the ultimate goal of a data storage solution, but in fact, cloud storage (also known as managed storage) is not perfect. If used improperly, the role of cloud storage may outweigh the benefits.

1. Cloud storage: not perfect at all

The secret of cloud storage is unknown.

This is not to say that storing data in a cloud service is completely unworkable. If you know how to properly use cloud services instead of local storage, cloud-based files and data warehouses will create significant value.

First, let's look at the drawbacks of cloud storage, which will help you decide when and where to use cloud services as a storage platform.

2. The disadvantages of managed storage

Before outsourcing enterprise data storage to cloud services, several factors (such as performance, security, control, and reliability) need to be considered:

Cloud storage is slow

One of the biggest challenges in putting data into cloud services is performance. For most IT professionals, the first performance bottleneck comes from a lenient to Web connection.

There are several factors that can affect broadband performance: the contention for network equipment performance from multiple users over the speed of the broadband service (depending on the level of bandwidth you choose). All these factors will affect the speed.

In addition to the speed problem, there is the performance of the cloud datacenter itself and the performance of the entire network. For the latter, this includes web traffic from other customers, shared infrastructure, and the amount of data transferred to the remote datacenter. Having considered these issues, we can see why cloud storage does not provide the same performance as local and networked disks.

In many cases, it takes a few minutes to replicate 2000 megabytes of data using local storage, and for cloud storage, the same operation may take several hours to complete.

Security issues

For cloud storage, your data is located outside the enterprise. Of course, most cloud storage provides VPN, encryption, or other security measures. However, as long as those who attempt to access the data have login credentials, they can access the data through any network endpoint.

This is not just a matter of cloud storage, but all cloud-based technology uses similar connectivity patterns. And, mobile cloud users, especially those who use insecure wireless networks, are easily intercepted and security threats increase.

This means that users using cloud storage must carefully consider potential security issues and deploy appropriate security technologies (such as additional encryption tiers or two-step authentication), which, of course, will affect performance and increase the cost of cloud storage.

Data ownership

In theory, when data is stored locally, IT professionals have absolute control over the data. This control will also be reduced when data is transferred to cloud services. For example, you may not know what data centers your data is stored in, and whether the data can be replicated to other locations. More importantly, your data may even be stored abroad and allow unauthorized individuals to access the data.

The nature of cloud services also adds to the uncertainty that makes it difficult to manage storage data substantively, and IT professionals rely only on service level agreements (SLAs) to determine the state of the data.

Reliability

While most cloud storage vendors promise 99.999% (the so-called "five Nine") availability, recent service outages from Amazon's resilient cloud service (elastic Cloud) indicate that users may not be able to access data stored in cloud services. The most frustrating thing about such events is the lack of alternatives or controls to speed up the resolution of downtime.

In other words, it is entirely up to the cloud storage vendor to re-establish access to user data.

3. Cloud storage: It's not completely unworkable.

Cloud storage has many drawbacks, but with common sense and proper planning, cloud storage can be a powerful tool for today's businesses.

The most logical application of cloud storage is the ability to create collaborative sharing of documents, spreadsheets, and other files with remote users and mobile users.

It can also be part of a disaster recovery plan. In this context, cloud storage offers several key advantages. For example, cloud storage service providers provide immediate, multiple-area backup to protect data from natural disasters or facility failures. However, this is only beneficial in most extreme cases, which cannot be used as an alternative to corporate onsite backup, but as a supplement.

Of course, as other cloud services evolve, the pros and cons of cloud storage will change. For example, the emergence of platforms as services (PaaS) and software as services (SaaS). In these cases, it is a good choice to move local storage to the cloud service, while simplifying management and backup trivia.

In some cases, hybrid storage can create higher value by replicating local storage (typically NAS or SAN) to a dual storage mode of cloud services, and data stored in cloud services can be accessed by remote users or branch users and used as offsite backups. With this mixed access, local users can still tell the access data, and remote users can access the data.

The trick to using cloud storage is to weigh the pros and cons of using the technology reasonably, rather than blindly follow suit.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)