In the nearly two decades that cloud storage has been available, it has developed a certain reputation: lots of choices around performance and scalability, but only for object-based workflows and use cases.
If you’re looking to the cloud for your file-based workflows and applications, the story has been a little murkier. In all the time that cloud storage has been available, cloud file services have still not been able to deliver anywhere near the simplicity, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of their object storage counterparts.
That’s not to say it hasn’t been tried. Over the past 10+ years, a number of cloud file solutions have appeared, but they still come with a lot of caveats and compromises that have prevented (or stalled) wide-scale adoption, such as:
- No single solution for on-prem and cloud. Enterprise file platforms tend to offer on-prem versions only, meaning you’ll need to go through a separate evaluation and selection process to find a solution that meets your cloud needs.
- Different management experience. Your separate cloud file platform will probably have almost nothing in common with your on-prem storage — even if it’s from the same vendor! You’ll need to develop all-new admin processes, all-new automations and scripts, and spend a lot of time learning the limits of what your new cloud solution can do, and coming up with workarounds for what it can’t.
- Feature-limited. You may find that those storage features and capabilities that you’ve come to rely on for your on-prem workflows – like snapshots, or site-to-site replication, or quotas – may not even be available in your preferred cloud storage solution. If they ARE available, they’re licensed separately, causing you to absorb more costs on top of what you’re already paying for separate on-prem and cloud storage.
- Scalability limitations. Most cloud file solutions limit your scalability to as little as 100TB per instance. While this may work for some use cases, it can be a disappointing reality check for customers expecting unlimited capacity who suddenly have to figure out how to split large-scale workflows across multiple cloud volumes. It might work for some use cases, but it’s a deal breaker for many others.
Is that all? Not even close. Once you’ve settled on the cloud file option that comes closest to your needs, you still have to size your solution, deploy it, and figure out how you’ll get your data into the cloud… and then learn to live within its limits (see above).
Is that really the future you imagined when you thought of all the possibilities of cloud data?The future of cloud – available today
But what if it didn’t have to be this way? Imagine a world where you can get unlimited cloud storage for not just your object workflows, but your file-based apps too. One where you can stand up a full storage environment – knowing that it comes with all the same features as the on-prem version – scalable, secure, and ready to support your most demanding cloud-native and file-based workflows – in just a few minutes? If you’re a Microsoft Azure customer, or you’re seeking to move file data from on-prem to the cloud, you can have all of the above – scalable, simple, capable of moving massive amounts of data from your on-prem storage to and from the cloud – with our newly announced, generally available Azure Native Qumulo Scalable File Service.From zero to petabytes in minutes
Deploying the Azure Native Qumulo Scalable File Service is simple and fast, right from your Microsoft Azure portal. With just a few clicks. you choose the region and availability zone, then select a performance tier and initial size, and connect it directly to your own Azure VNET. That’s it. Your new enterprise-grade file storage – whether it’s as small as a few starter terabytes or an exabyte-sized behemoth – is online and accessible within minutes. And it’s exactly the same as an on-prem Qumulo cluster: the same massive scalability in a single namespace; the same multi-protocol feature set for your file and object workloads, and the same management tools that you’re already using for your on-prem Qumulo storage. Once you’ve deployed your new Azure Native Qumulo Scalable File Service instance, Qumulo’s built-in data replication service makes it easy to move data back and forth between any two Qumulo endpoints. For instance, you can move data from on-prem to Azure for analysis, modification, or transformation, and then just as easily bring it back onsite. You can do the reverse if you need to – from edge, to core, to cloud, to archive – without needing to refactor a single application. Qumulo includes full support for both file and object protocol access, so you can even share data across your file-based and cloud-native workflows. The limitless scalability that Qumulo and Azure combined enable use cases that are unthinkable on-prem:- If you’re a healthcare provider, you can port your entire PACS environment to an Azure-based solution – or you can build an all-new, HIPAA-compliant solution just for the cloud.
- If you need a centralized storage target for your video-surveillance systems infrastructure, you can consolidate petabytes of footage to a single Azure Native Qumulo target that’s easily accessible and quickly scalable.
- Azure Native Qumulo customers span a broad spectrum of industries: from healthcare and life sciences to media and gaming studios, to energy and financial services – all of whom leverage Qumulo’s simplicity and scalability to meet their unique challenges.
James Walkenhorst is the Sr. Technical Marketing Engineer on Qumulo’s Product team. He has been working on and around NAS platforms and hands-on demo environments for 15 years, and spent the 10 years before that in IT operations as both an engineer and manager.
