By Chris Bukowski
Senior Manager, Product Marketing, Spectra Logic
Did you know that more than 60% of all data remains dormant, untouched for more than a year? According to industry analysts that figure could reach 80% or more by 2025.
Efficiently managing and protecting this so-called cold data remains a critical challenge, while failure to effectively do so can create security vulnerabilities, operational inefficiencies and drive increased costs.
As data volumes continue to climb – by 2025, the global datasphere will grow to 163 zettabytes (i.e., 163 trillion gigabytes) according to IDC – the need for scalable, secure, and cost-effective storage solutions becomes imperative. Not all data requires frequent access, yet preserving that data remains crucial for compliance, historical reference, or potential future analysis. The need to store data cost-effectively while maintaining its availability has given rise to cold data storage, a storage category designed to archive data in a manner that optimizes costs without compromising the ability to access it when required.
Tapping the potential of cold data lies at the core of the new integration between Spectra On-Prem Glacier and NetApp StorageGRID. This validated solution extends the StorageGRID software-defined object storage suite with a cold storage tier of object-based tape, providing a hybrid cloud storage architecture that optimizes the management and long-term retention of unstructured data at scale.
Spectra On-Prem Glacier is a modern object-based tape solution that provides performant, cost-effective backup and archive storage using S3 Standard and Amazon S3 Glacier APIs. Native support for Amazon S3 protocols in NetApp StorageGRID allows Spectra On-Prem Glacier storage to be seamlessly inserted into existing workflows. Spectra On-Prem Glacier solutions improve ransomware resiliency and minimize cloud data retrieval, reducing or eliminating expensive egress fees. The combined solution is ideal for management and long-term retention of unstructured data at scale, ensuring faster data access and providing significant cost savings over cold cloud storage.
- Enhanced Security and Ransomware Protection: Fortify your data with encryption in flight and at rest and with air-gapped protection, ensuring superior security and protection against ransomware threats.
- Egress Fee Mitigation: Minimize or eliminate unexpected cloud-based data egress fees and optimize cost management – up to 66% less than comparable public cloud storage.
- Optimized Disaster Recovery: Reduce disaster recovery time by optimizing cold data retrieval speed when compared to cold public cloud storage, ensuring swift access to data stored locally.
- Data Control: Ensure compliance with data governance, sovereignty and retention mandates by securely storing long-term data in a dedicated local repository.
- Environmental Sustainability: Minimize energy consumption to achieve sustainability goals and maximize operational efficiency using energy-efficient tape.
Enabling Efficient Workflows and Efficient Resource Utilization
The validated solution enables organizations to employ tiered storage architectures, where you can seamlessly segregate data based on accessibility requirements, directing it to the most suitable storage tier. Frequently accessed data resides on StorageGRID for quick retrieval and minimal latency – allowing businesses to access crucial information without hindrance. Cold data is stored on Spectra On-Prem Glacier for long-term retention, security and cost efficiency.
This cold data, though not accessed as frequently, can be accessed in seconds or minutes rather than hours or days when compared to cold public cloud storage. The solution allows you to strike a balance between performance and storage cost-effectiveness based on your data usage needs. This ensures an efficient use of storage capacities, reducing unnecessary expenses and optimizing resource allocation.
Efficiently managing critical yet dormant data presents a hidden value waiting to be revealed. The Spectra On-Prem Glacier integration with NetApp StorageGRID helps you extract maximum value from every byte, turning dormant data into an active driver of efficiency and growth. With this new solution, you can gain enhanced ransomware resilience, slash egress fees, speed up disaster recovery and minimize power consumption – all while retaining necessary control over your valuable data.
