All three major cloud providers are using archival storage to tempt large corporate customers. But Google is turning up the heat on its competitors by giving clients low-latency access to seldom-used data stored in the cloud.
Chief among them are Amazon and Microsoft which, like the Google Cloud Platform, sell archival storage as-a-serviceOpens a new window options for records kept mostly for compliance purposes. Google’s tweak is to provide instant access for customers that must retain information – often in the form of financial transactions and medical records – they don’t intend to retrieve.
Amazon Web Services, the e-commerce giant’s cloud business, and Microsoft’s Azure cloud company need advance notice that can run as long as a day to bring servers online and deliver the data.
Turning on tape
All three big tech companies tout archive class storage as a replacement for magnetic tapeOpens a new window , which is the preferred medium for seldom-accessed data due to capacity and long life. They say the cloud, combined with back-up in multiple data centers, can lower storage costs over maintaining tape libraries.
Security also is a consideration for records that can include image originals and volumes of closed-circuit video. Encryption and customization are included on the companies’ drives.
The compliance goal is “write once, read many†– or WORM – for long-term data storage. The tech companies add that prudent life-cycle management lessens the possibility that malicious actors can compromise companies and information.
Platform access
To achieve it, Google’s Archive class storageOpens a new window uses a system called “Bucket Lock†that lets systems administrators create policies around the retention and deletion of data. Once parameters are set, they can’t be undone unless data meets the specified minimums.
Google says Bucket Lock adds a layer of security by ensuring that data can’t be erased.
Coupled with the single API that lets customers access data across its range of options for storing the hot data that feeds enterprise computing jobs and the back-up levels it offers for data that’s accessed monthly and quarterly, Google is setting a benchmark in the marketplace.
Blobs away
Microsoft, whose share of the cloud market more than doubles Google’s, also is promoting cold-storage innovationOpens a new window for the large caches of unstructured data it calls “blobs.†In August, the operating-systems behemoth created functionality for priority retrieval of data stored offline.
It also created a copy capability that lets companies preserve their stored data even as engineers and scientists use it to create apps and processes. Data housed in containers can be uploaded and accessed directly, including in the so-called “hot†tiers where it can be readily accessed.
Those developments arrived with sharp reductions in pricing, of up to 50% in some regions — a response to moves made by market leader Amazon Web Services to shave the cost of cloud storage.
Glacial change
AWS debuted its Glacier storage line in 2012 and in April released a deep archive versionOpens a new window of the product. While access times aren’t as quick as Google’s millisecond latencies, Amazon reports a strong response by customers looking to innovate in the data center.
AWS says that moving on from tape not only lowers costs for maintaining libraries and verifying files. But rack storage also permits the application of advanced technologies such as machine learning that make use of digitized data.
Moving customers may be a bigger challenge, though.
Service offerings and prices demand that enterprise users consider not only duration and regulation when contemplating a shiftOpens a new window . Migration costs can be significant and monthly subscription rates will be affected by the exponential growth of data from an explosion of connected devicesOpens a new window as telecoms roll out 5G wireless technology.