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storage ❚❚❚❚ cloud solutions
Pure Or Hybrid Cloud:
What Is Best For Your Customers?
Fully understanding your customers’ business needs is the biggest factor to providing them with
the best cloud solution.
By Gennifer Biggs
W
Tech Trends
With so much interest last year in the cloud, the
marketplace has become crowded with companies
touting cloud-based data protection solutions of
every flavor. I’ve asked several vendors — Egnyte,
Rackspace, Intronis, and Axcient — to help clarify
the options by explaining what options solutions
providers can choose from, what to consider when
picking options for customers, and how to present
the value of cloud data protection options.
Defining Cloud Solutions
Is Key To Customer Satisfaction
Let’s start with the basics. Vineet Jain, CEO and
cofounder of Egnyte, explains the difference
between pure cloud solutions and hybrid options:
“A pure cloud-based solution means data is hosted
in the cloud on either a vendor’s or solutions
provider’s servers, and an Internet connection is
required to access the data. A hybrid solution combines a cloud back end with the ability to access
the same files on a local device owned by the customer.” Jain adds that accessing the files on the
local device doesn’t require an Internet connection. The difference between the two is obvious —
a copy of your customer’s data is either on-premise
or not, or in the case of online storage, devices are
either on-premise or not. “Plus customers who
employ a fully online cloud storage option no
longer have any physical devices in their offices.
They are either taking advantage of an off-site
Vineet Jain, CEO and
cofounder
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John Engates, CTO
Kent Plunkett, CEO
server in a co-location facility, or they are running
virtual machines in a multitenant environment,”
explains John Engates, CTO of Rackspace Hosting,
which offers the latter option. Obviously, for some
customers, that pure cloud model works, but in the
last year, a lot of buzz has been generated around
a hybrid model, where data is replicated into the
cloud, but remains on-site as well. Additionally,
the hybrid model resolves several issues associated with pure cloud, especially for customers in
verticals ruled by compliance mandates. So, how
do VARs and managed services providers (MSPs)
know what is best for their customers?
Kent Plunkett, CEO of Intronis, advises channel
partners to weigh the pros and cons of both
options before choosing a solution for customers.
“Advantages of cloud solutions include true business continuity, data restore to any site, a reduction in capital expenses, centralized control, and,
in some cases, encryption,” says Plunkett, who
adds that high reliability and availability are also
plusses if the solution uses a tier-four-classified,
SAS 70 Type II-certified data center. Engates agrees
that all cloud solutions have both benefits and pitfalls, so the most important aspect of selecting a
cloud solution that works for your customer is a
full understanding of what your client’s business
needs are for the cloud. “Public cloud provides the
ability to quickly scale by tapping into shared computing resources and offloading data and applications into the cloud,” he
explains.
Advantages offered by
hybrid cloud solutions are
similar to those offered by
pure cloud solutions, with
the capacity for real-time
backup being the biggest
differentiator. “We recomJustin Moore, CEO
mend that our channel partners position cloud as part
of a holistic solution,”
explains Justin Moore, CEO
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storage ❚❚❚❚ cloud solutions
“Since each business is different,
the channel must focus on identifying business
needs such as backup, file sharing, collaboration, etc.
before recommending a solution.”
Vineet Jain, Egnyte
Customer Needs Drive Decisions On Cloud
Understanding how your customers will use a cloud
solution is key to providing the right one because there
are advantages to both methods. “Since each business is
different, the channel must focus on identifying business
needs such as backup, file sharing, collaboration, etc.
before recommending a solution,” says Jain. In a backup/archival situation, where data on local devices is
being backed up in the cloud, a pure cloud solution with
well-defined service level agreement (SLA) for data
recovery will likely work best, adds Jain. However, if
the business is planning to use the cloud as a primary
file store or for sharing, then a hybrid solution may be a
better fit. Another important factor in choosing a solution is your customers’ vertical. Engates points out that
customers in industries including Web development and
design and e-commerce find high value in pure cloud
storage. Plunkett adds that SMBs can benefit from pure
cloud as well due to the simplicity and elimination of
capital expenditures — particularly attractive to startups.
One situation where hybrid solutions often win out is
in verticals governed by compliance rules. “We would
recommend a hybrid approach for medical businesses
that need to comply with Healthcare Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations
that have recovery, security, and availability requirements,” says Plunkett. “Financial businesses also have to
comply with similar security and availability regulations,
and we recommend a hybrid approach for them as well.”
Regardless of the solution, all the vendors warn against
focusing on cost rather than the business value of cloud,
such as secure, secondary backup locations, high availability of data regardless of user location, encryption
options, and the support and service of both vendors
and the VAR.
What Is Ahead For Cloud Solutions
“We are growing our data at an obscene rate, so we’ll
continue to struggle to answer the question of how to
store this data,” says Moore. Because explosive data
growth is pushing the boundaries of traditional storage
and data protection solutions, and because businesses
are extremely reliant on that digital data, the tolerance
for downtime is evaporating. “We have converted our
businesses to leverage technology, and now we rely on
that data to run our businesses, which means our solutions must reflect that need for near-constant availability,” he adds. That means the pressure is on for cloud
solutions to resolve the issue of uptime and security
while making storage more affordable for businesses of
all sizes.
Jain says he expects tremendous growth in the cloud
market in the next 24 months. “We will see an increase
in channel awareness and channel sales of cloud solutions as the world moves to pay-as-you-use models,” he
predicts. “We also expect to see a rush of customer
demand and a strong move up-market. Most early adoption has been on the consumer and low end of the SMB
market, but midsize companies and enterprises have
been observing from the sidelines. As the value and
offerings from vendors start to crystallize, we expect to
see a big surge in adoption.” ●
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of Axcient. “You want that cloud location for disaster
recovery (DR) purposes, and every business, no matter
how small, should have a secure methodology for storing its data in a totally disparate location.” Add to that
compliance mandates, and a secondary site moves from
a “should” to a “must.” But Moore cautions that the offsite cloud element of a business continuity plan is only
part of the puzzle. “When you look at the reasons
behind data loss, it isn’t often disaster, but rather user
error, server crashes, and accidental deletes. While you
want to protect yourself from the ultimate disaster, you
can’t overlook that the solution needs to resolve more
common disruptions.” That, says Moore, is where the
on-premise portion comes into play. “The main problem
with cloud is bandwidth. It’s simply too slow for restoration purposes.” Moore and Jain alike recommend solutions that provide on-site restore capabilities to offset the
major drawback of pure cloud. “If you are working on a
large file, the quality of your experience depends on the
size of the file and the strength of your Internet connection,” explains Jain. “For example, you may have a DSL
connection that works great for Microsoft Office files but
gets sluggish when you work on large photo files from
the cloud. With a hybrid solution, you can access your
locally stored file and edit it quickly, eliminating the
heavy dependence on the Internet connection.”