Data tiering is a well-known concept in storage circles, and was traditionally done to move data between the tiers of a single vendor’s storage platform. This was all well and good when data volumes were manageable and when IT departments had a single vendor. But times have changed and today most IT teams have at least two storage vendors (such as, AWS or Azure) and too much data to keep on the expensive NAS. Data tiering needs have changed–and so have the strategies. Adopting a flexible data tiering solution that delivers the maximum ROI is paramount now–not only because storage budgets are stretched too thin but because intelligent data tiering supports feeding AI data pipelines and it also can improve your ransomware defense.
Check out this case study with Katten Law to learn how they achieved multiple benefits with Komprise data tiering.
Our latest white paper focuses on the benefits of hybrid tiering, an independent, storage-agnostic approach to tiering unstructured data across your entire hybrid storage infrastructure, including on-premises and cloud, file and object storage.
While 90% of data created today is unstructured, according to IBM, the majority of this data becomes cold within months of creation, as users and applications tend to actively use unstructured data early in its life.
This cold yet valuable unstructured data continues to occupy expensive storage, although it no longer has the same performance requirements. More importantly, it consumes expensive backup, disaster recovery and ransomware defense resources.
The Data Tiering Mandate
As a result, there is now a mandate to not only establish the right data tiering strategy to save and avoid unnecessary storage and backup costs, there is growing demand to gain value from this data for strategic AI and analytics initiatives.
Most storage vendors have built in data tiering, or so-called “pools” based techniques, to move data within their operating systems. Storage-based data tiering and pools-based techniques to move data within a single architecture or operating system can deliver cost savings for system data such as snapshots. However, storage tiering introduces many limitations when it comes to flexible data policies, cost savings, ransomware defense, broader data access and unstructured data management needs.
This paper reviews five considerations when evaluating data tiering options and presents a cost model that outlines the benefits of hybrid tiering as both a complement and an alternative to built-in tiering capabilities from data storage vendors.
Reduce your ransomware attack surface.- Avoid rehydration when refreshing your storage.
- Provide flexible data management polices while maintaining transparent access.
- Ensure innovation and choice with cloud native data access.
- Ensure your unstructured data is ready for AI.
Additionally, with the Komprise hybrid tiering approach, you can change your underlying storage anytime and nothing changes. You are future proofed and not tied into any specific vendor’s storage with this standards-based approach.
For additional information on Komprise Transparent Move Technology (TMT), file-tiering benefits as well as best practices, be sure to check out the Guide to Unstructured Data Tiering.
