IT has been experimenting over the last decade or so on how to get applications to the cloud in an efficient and effective manner.
Initially doing a “lift and shift” was seen as the most effective method, which meant moving the applications to the same hardware with the same file system that was co-located in the cloud. As such, many organizations changed the location of their compute and management resources, but didn’t change the underlying structure or how these resources were used. As a result, they didn’t really see any benefit from the cloud.
Many companies did this co-location “lift and shift” and were often disappointed (and surprised) at the resulting high costs and lack of flexibility. Ultimately, many of these applications ended up being repatriated back to the on-prem data center.
Next came the concept of re-architecting or refactoring your applications for the cloud. Refactoring was made possible by the gradual introduction of more sophisticated and robust platform services from cloud service providers. Refactoring is the process of revising or rewriting existing computer code so applications can run smoothly in a distributed cloud environment. If this sounds time- and resource-intensive, it is.
Fortunately there is a third option available today: using a cloud-native file system to run your file-based applications either on-prem or in the cloud. A cloud-native file system like Qumulo’s is designed to work the same on-prem or in the cloud regardless of the underlying infrastructure. This option enables you to run your applications on-prem or in the cloud using the same enterprise-proven, real-time visibility, scale, and API control that you have come to expect for your file data. Your applications run unmodified, yet they run at cloud-native speeds and you can take advantage of the best aspects of the cloud that weren’t realized with “lift and shift”: dynamic scalability, total control of your infrastructure, and the ability to manage the whole thing as code infrastructure as-a-service.
All of the above options have the application as the focal point of cloud access, when in reality it is an organization’s data that is the lifeblood of modern business. How do organizations ensure they are getting customer and business insights out of their data? The issue now is not how to get the data (i.e., “I need to analyze my business”), but how to efficiently and effectively, on an on-going basis, analyze massive amounts of customer data (i.e., “I have to accelerate innovation and optimize business investments”). One way to do this is to move the data itself into a format that the cloud understands. This often involves moving the data from a file format to a native S3 format.
Qumulo makes it easy to bring your workflows and applications to the cloud, even workstation and data center applications not written for the cloud. Our recently-introduced feature, Qumulo Shift for AWS S3, is the easiest way to put your file data into native AWS S3 to enable AWS cloud services and AWS Marketplace applications.
With Qumulo, you can scale to handle projects of any size and have on-demand scalability for performance and capacity. The cloud offers access to elastic resources so organizations can use only what they need when they need it. You also get to experience the same intuitive management tool UIs, and leverage the same APIs in the cloud and on-prem. Qumulo lets you run any file-based application virtually at cloud-native speeds on AWS or Google Cloud. The best thing is, there is no rewriting required!
Qumulo recognizes that companies want to have their file-based applications – whether that’s the latest workstation application or a legacy data center application – in the cloud. And increasingly, they want to be able to leverage the numerous cloud-based services such as artificial intelligence and machine learning with this data. The optimal scenario is that organizations would have both file and S3/object in the cloud, and be able to easily shift between them as their needs dictate. Having both your file-based applications in the cloud and using cloud services provides the flexibility needed to be agile, responsive and innovative. While cloud services can be extraordinarily valuable, they are not easily accessible unless your data exists within the cloud service you want to leverage
Qumulo gives you the ability to easily have both file and native AWS S3 object in the cloud. Thousands of AWS Marketplace applications and AWS-native services are at your disposal when you use Qumulo Shift for AWS S3 to put your data in AWS S3 cloud object store. Best of all, Qumulo Shift for AWS S3 is built-in, so there’s nothing additional to purchase or install.
Qumulo Shift for AWS S3 enables you to copy your data to native AWS S3. With Qumulo Shift for AWS S3, customers can now take full advantage of their valuable and growing file data on-prem or in the cloud and with a few clicks. Organizations can now move their file data to AWS S3, with absolute data freedom, making it radically easier for that data to natively interact with AWS services such as Amazon Sagemaker, Amazon Rekognition, and more.
With Qumulo you can have the best of both worlds: file data and applications on-prem and in the cloud, as well as the freedom to access cloud-based services, leveraging data with any application in either file or object format. All without spending the time and resources to refactor your applications or sacrificing functionality, resiliency and performance. All using the same file system to drive business efficiency and giving you API-based control of your file data.
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Download the ESG Research Insights Paper to learn more.
