The storage solution of the century

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Data is in increasing becoming an issue for the CIO. This has everything to do with the changing nature – and quantity – of the data to be stored. More and more data is flowing in in from everywhere in every form. These days, data is the new gold for companies. On the one hand, from a cost perspective, companies want to restrict the quantity of data; on the other hand, they want to store as much data as possible so that they can analyze it and ultimately convert it into usable information that increases their ability to compete. A software defined storage platform is the portal to a modern, data-driven organization.

In a world of exploding unstructured data, old data storage methods no longer suffice. Traditional data storage methods have been completely outdated. Thanks to the current explosion of data, creating so-called ‘on-site mirrors’ and ‘remote copies’ so as to guarantee data availability and reliability has become both economically and technically unfeasible. A new revolutionary approach is thus required for storing unstructured data, such as videos, photos, and IOT data.

Cloud Object Storage

In this context, in 2015 IBM took over the market leader in the domain of Cloud Object Storage, the Chicago-based company Cleversafe, and completely integrated it into IBM’s Cloud portfolio under the name IBM Cloud Object Storage.

The power of the solution lies in reducing the ‘capacity overhead’ by an average of 50% in order to be able to guarantee the availability and reliability of the data. Objects are divided into smaller pieces, encrypted, equipped with erasure coding and finally distributed across different locations. This can result in cost reductions of 30%-80% compared to traditional storage methods.

It is also interesting to note that this storage method can be infinitely scaled and can be deployed by companies on-site, but also in the cloud or in a hybrid form.

Qualitative step forward

Sky, a media company that has stored video material in IBM Cloud Object Storage, is a good example. When images are requested, they are composed and delivered in real time. For Sky’s CIO, speed, availability, safety and scalability have been vitally important.

In the interim, many CIOs have become open to cloud object storage. But IT managers are provisionally still too focused on the traditional (on site) storage environment, that appears to be safe and that they want to maintain. All the more reason for CIOs to take the plunge and store data in a method that is designed for today’s digital world.

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