What is cloud storage?
Pay as you go cloud storage is becoming the new norm. The latest research suggests that 65% of all global businesses are using some form of cloud-based storage. In fact, those using cloud storage solution in the US is significantly higher, with 93% of small businesses backing up their data securely with some kind of ‘storage as a service’ cloud solution.
Organisations ranging from ambitious start-ups to well-established global leaders work with larger and larger volumes of data each year, and that trend shows no signs of changing. This means storage of critical business data has become a major concern for many organisations, who not only need to meet a range of increasingly-complex compliance challenges, but also need to guarantee the security and reversibility of their customers’ data, and – in many cases – have cumbersome legacy storage systems to contend with and potentially migrate. The cutting edge of cloud computing offers an alternative, with Public Cloud delivering secure, flexible and affordable storage for high volumes of business data, with a level of flexibility and scalability that would previously have been impossible.
Cloud storage definition
Cloud storage is an unavoidable resource for anyone who uses the internet. Whether you’re storing emails in an online drive, using file storage, file sharing online, or uploading digital photographs; it is likely that you rely on a cloud server in more way than one. But what is cloud storage and how would a cloud storage provider benefit your business.
Cloud storage is simply the practice of storing data remotely in the cloud, rather than on-premises. There are a number of advantages to this approach. First of all, it eliminates the need to deploy and maintain a bare metal local storage on an ongoing basis, either on-premises or in an external datacentre. Your cloud provider takes responsibility for maintaining the hardware, thus reducing the total cost of ownership. Secondly, the flexibility of the cloud makes it easy to deploy additional storage on an as-needed basis, eliminating the need to anticipate future storage requirements, and helping to minimise costs. Finally, the cloud’s considerable potential for automation means that long-term storage need not be an ongoing diversion for internal teams, allowing them to maintain their focus on business-critical activities.
Cloud storage provides storage space and storage services for all your data; such as files and folders, photo storage, media files and external hard drives; provisioning storage networks that are protected by encryption keys and data security measures. This seamlessly syncs files across your storage options in a scalable, backed up way - implementing an enterprise storage solution that can be tailored to suit your business needs.
No matter how many terabytes are uploaded as cloud data, a redundant private cloud storage system – optimised with storage management tools and simple storage solutions – enables businesses to grow effortlessly without the costs associated with on-premises servers or bare-metal in a datacentre. Without storage management to worry about – and the hefty investment associated with dedicated servers – businesses can scale up and invest in focused growth.
How to use cloud storage
OVHcloud believes in offering cloud storage solutions that work for you, allowing you to store and manage your production and archived data in whatever way best suits your requirements in terms of security, accessibility, compliance, and reversibility. A well-considered cloud storage solution can have a wide range of cloud applications, including storing and securing customer data in line with compliance requirements, powering big data and data analytics initiatives, or potentially enforcing backup and recovery systems as part of a wider disaster recovery plan.
Based on the open standards you already know and trust, our Public Cloud Storage solutions have been designed with these challenges in mind, offering a range of options that integrate smoothly with our other cloud and bare-metal solutions, without compromising security or flexibility. This includes:
Block storage
Effortlessly create secure, low-latency storage volumes through the OVHcloud Control Panel with each cluster triple-replicated, for maximum compute reliability.
Object storage
Deploy additional storage on demand and manage it through your preferred API. Ideal for data analytics or data storage projects.
Cloud archive
Secure, accessible, and stress-free long-term archiving for your critical business data, with an optimal price/performance ratio, and fully compatible with all standard protocols.
Volume snapshot
Automated snapshots of your block storage volumes, allowing you to revert whenever necessary, or quickly create new volumes, for complete peace of mind.
Instance backup
Fully automated backups for your cloud instances, ensuring your data can always be retrieved with just a few clicks, should it ever prove necessary.
Whichever cloud storage solution(s) you opt for, you will have the option of hosting them at datacentres across our entire global network, allowing you to store and access data close to where your teams and customers are located, while fulfilling all local compliance requirements, and striking the perfect balance between performance and security. Whether you plan on migrating your entire storage system to the cloud, or require flexible, affordable online storage for a specific project, the OVHcloud Public Cloud will provide you with the tools you need.
By moving to the cloud, both small businesses and large businesses can achieve unlimited storage solutions, as well as security and compliance, and service maintenance. Cloud architecture – that is resilient to failovers and offers backup and recovery options – is the only storage option for scalability that isn’t prone to over-allocation and the associated storage costs.
