Cloud hosting providers and services are buzz these days and have every right to be. The cloud hosting providers seem to be adding new services frequently. Having a non-premise storage service is the most appealing service of cloud platforms. Incorporating other business solutions sounds like the right plan.
The whole concept of cloud storage is still a new idea to people. Unexpected and different. Let’s scratch out everything you have known about the cloud hosting providers and look at the point where it all began. Both Amazon and Microsoft Azure offer many different storage services. Some of the services are a lot like what we have on-premise, like Azure File Storage and AWS Elastic Block Store. The mentioned services resemble traditional file sharing and block storage. However, they can revolutionize your experience when used in a cloud environment. Moreover, there are other cloud services to make your experience convenient –for instance, object storage and gateways. All of these services are different than the traditional ones we have always been using and what makes the whole deal interesting.
Let us understand why and how organizations will advantage from this new technology. The fundamental reason to shift to the cloud platform should be the storage space. Other than the main reason, the rest of the supporting reasons will include:
No Beforehand Purchases
This is what set cloud storage apart from the traditional ones, where you needed to purchase space for future needs. This could have resulted in the best guesses, overestimated space, and missing targets.
Unlimited Storage Option
There has been a dispute about whether the cloud is limited or not, but from a customer’s point-of-view, you can get as much cloud space as required, effective immediately.
Predictive Pricing
The cloud storage pricing might not be as linear, but it could be somewhat predictive. One of the reasons to embrace cloud storage. However, we recommend looking at the storage capacity and their pricing for future use. The AW S3 Standard Storage offers the first 50 TB per month for $0.023 per GB. However, other aspects of the storage being provided should be considered, including:
1. Uploading Data To Cloud
Uploading data to the cloud comes with a reasonable price tag, specifically how the data is written to the cloud. Is the data written in batches over time (more write operation or put tasks)? Or is it uploaded in one go? This can cause a massive difference in cost.
2. Egress
Egress defines as the read from the cloud storage location, which has a cost. The two approaches include retrieving the right pieces of the data required versus loading the entire data set.
3. Deletion
An aspect to look at and consider, not just from a cost perspective. Data in the cloud will sustain there as long as you pay for it. Make sure you are not paying for the dead data.
But how can an organization manage the policies for their cloud storage? The above mentioned guidelines will help you make the right decision, or you can take advantage of the frameworks by Cloud Hosting Providers to control the usage and consumption. AWS Organization offers a policy-based management system to handle multiple AWS accounts. This will be handling the account management, billing, and control of the cloud services. However, Azure also offers somewhat similar capabilities with Subscription and Service Management with RBAC.
With all the information we have previously discovered regarding the cloud services and the addition of new frameworks, organizations can easily benefit from the cloud hosting providers.
