Data Management Glossary
Cloud NAS
What is Cloud NAS?
Cloud NAS is a relatively new term – it refers to a cloud-based storage solution to store and manage files. Cloud NAS or cloud file storage is gaining prominence and several vendors have now released cloud NAS offerings.
What is NAS?
Network Attached Storage (NAS) refers to data storage that can be accessed from different devices over a network. NAS environments have gained prominence for file-based workloads because they provide a hierarchical structure of directories and folders that makes it easier to organize and find files. Many enterprise applications today are file-based, and use files stored in a NAS as their data repositories.
Access Protocols
Cloud NAS storage is accessed via the Server Message Block (SMB) and Network File System (NFS) protocols. On-premises NAS environments are also accessed via SMB and NFS.
Why is Cloud NAS gaining in importance?
While the cloud was initially used by DevOps teams for new cloud-native applications that were largely object-based, the cloud is now seen as a major destination for core enterprise applications. These enterprise workloads are largely file-based, and so moving them to the cloud without rewriting the application means file-based workloads need to be able to run in the cloud.
To address this need, both cloud vendors and third-party storage providers are now creating cloud-based NAS offerings. Here are some examples of cloud NAS offerings:
- Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) – A file system by AWS that runs the NFS protocol.
- Amazon FSx – Windows File Server running on AWS, for SMB based workloads.
- Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP – Fully managed file services built on NetApp’s popular ONTAP, which makes it easy and cost-effective to launch, run, and scale feature-rich, high-performance file systems in the cloud.
- NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP (CVO) – NetApp ONTAP based file system on AWS, Azure and Google
- Qumulo Cloud NAS – Qumulo NFS and SMB running in the cloud
- Azure Files – Fully managed serverless file shares.
- Azure NetApp Files – High-performance NFS based file storage running NetApp in the Azure cloud.
Cloud NAS Tiers
Cloud NAS storage is often designed for high-performance file workloads and its high performance Flash tier can be very expensive.
Many Cloud NAS offerings such as AWS EFS and NetApp CloudVolumes ONTAP do offer some less expensive file tiers – but putting data in these lower tiers requires some data management solution. As an example, the standard tier of AWS EFS is 10 times more expensive than the standard tier of AWS S3. Furthermore, when you use a Cloud NAS, you may also have to replicate and backup the data, which can often make it three times more expensive. As this data becomes inactive and cold data, it is very important to manage data lifecycle on Cloud NAS to ensure you are only paying for what you use and not for dormant cold data on expensive tiers.
Intelligent Data Archiving and Intelligent Data Tiering for Cloud NAS
An analytics-driven unstructured data management solution can help you get the right data onto your cloud NAS and keep your cloud NAS costs low by managing the data lifecycle with intelligent archiving and intelligent tiering.
As an example, Komprise Intelligent Data Management for multi-cloud does the following:
- Analyzes your on-premises NAS data so you can pick the data sets you want to migrate to the cloud
- Migrates on-premises NAS data to your cloud NAS with speed, reliability and efficiency
- Analyzes data on your cloud NAS to show you how data is getting cold and inactive
- Enables policy-based automation so you can decide when data should be archived and tiered from expensive Cloud NAS tiers to lower cost file or object classes
- Monitors ongoing costs to ensure you avoid expensive retrieval fees when cold data becomes hot again
- Eliminates expensive backup and DR costs of cold data on cloud NAS
Cloud NAS Migration
There are man potential advantages to migrated your NAS device to the cloud. But the right approach to cloud data migration is essential. Some of the common cloud NAS migration challenges are outlined in this post: Eliminating the Roadblocks of Cloud Data Migrations for File and NAS Data. Avoid unstructured data migration challenges and pitfalls with an analytics-first approach to cloud data migration and unstructured data management. With Komprise Elastic Data Migration you will:
- Know before you migrate – analytics drive the most cost-effective plans
- Preserve data integrity – maintain metadata, run MD5 checksums
- Save time and costs – multi-level parallelism provides elastic scaling
- Be worry-free – built for petabyte-scale that ensures reliability
- Migrate NFS 27X faster and Migrate SMB data 25X faster – forget slow, free tools that need babysitting
Get the fast, no lock-in path to the cloud with a unified platform for unstructured data migration.
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