STORAGE FOR Private Clouds

ESSENTIAL BUSINESS TECH
EXECUTIVES, PROFESSIONALS & ENTREPRENEURS
STORAGE
FOR Private Clouds
Leverage The Benefits,
Avoid The Pitfalls
Enterprises often see dollar
signs when they consider how
much money they might save
by relying on a cloud provider
for their storage needs.

In theory, at least, the advantages are obvious: an off-site cloud provider offers the necessary infrastructure and management services at a far cheaper price than what it would cost to maintain storage in-house. But when data is stored on the cloud, the fear is that it is anyone’s guess where and on what kind of infrastructure the data is housed. The data leaves the enterprise and is supposed to be accessed as needed, but the enterprise usually has very little control over exactly how and where it is stored. Some cloud services also fail to meet the security, regulatory compliance, and data-availability requirements that an enterprise may have. For better data-management control and security, private cloud storage can serve as an alternative to a public cloud option. Private cloud solutions can also help enterprises remain compliant by guaranteeing that data is stored on dedicated equipment that is not shared with other customers. “Think of a private cloud as a particular application on dedicated resources. Private cloud storage offers an identifiable physical set of resources that are running that application on a specific server, a set of storage arrays, and a segment of a network,” says James Staten, an analyst for Forrester Research (www.forrester .com). “Everything is 100% dedicated to a client and to that particular storage application on a private cloud.” However, enterprises should consider the drawbacks as well as the potential benefits before putting their most important and sensitive data on a private cloud. When looking to store sensitive data on a private cloud, the cloud provider’s services and processes must be closely scrutinized to ensure that security and regulatory compliance requirements can be met. A private cloud solution for storage must also meet business requirements without unnecessary complexity or data-access latency compared to what traditional SAN (storage area network) environments offer. SETTING UP A PRIVATE CLOUD Creating and then managing a storage environment for sensitive, mission- critical, or other important data is usually a very complex undertaking for an enterprise to complete in-house. An advantage that private cloud storage offers is increased agility compared to setting up on-site storage. Besides the costs savings, a viable provider should be able to offer the capacity and capabilities required on demand. “When a CEO previously asked a CIO how long it would take to [set up] a storage system for [mission-critical data], the CIO might have said, ‘That will be three months and $3 million and I will call you when it’s done,’” says Gene Ruth, an analyst for Gartner (www.gartner.com). “With private cloud storage, the CIO just says, ‘No problem, it will be ready for you in an hour.’ That’s what private storage is about: agility and provisioning on demand.” However, the pace at which service providers can set up a private cloud storage environment is immaterial if it cannot meet an enterprise’s specific requirements and needs. A particular private cloud offering may seem like an attractive option, but it will fail if it interferes with business processes by not functioning properly. “It is important to ensure that the business logic and the data are kept close to each other,” says Clive Longbottom, founder of and analyst for Quocirca (www .quocirca.com). “Latency, for example, can kill the system with slow response and data drop outs.” SECURITY, AUDITS & SLEEPING WELL AT NIGHT Enterprises are usually hesitant about storing their sensitive and mission-critical data on the cloud, and for good reason, considering the compliance risks inherent in relinquishing control of data to a third party without much influence over where and how it is stored. But the beauty of the private cloud is that enterprises know exactly how their data is stored and that their data is better protected than it would be on a public cloud. “[Private cloud storage] will help on the regulatory front since there are no worries that the data is commingled with data from other companies or [if data is not supposed to be] stored offshore,” says Joe Malec, a fellow at the Information Systems Security Association (www.issa.org). “Some private cloud storage solutions may also help with collecting and managing data from different sources and geographic locations. This helps with organization and management during audit time.” However, the level of security that providers offer can vary. “The devil is in the details. The private cloud storage provider should be treated as a third party consultant/ vendor and the same oversight should exist,” Malec says. “Considerations include how they gain access to the network, the kind of access they have, and how can access be restricted.” Enterprises also need to tread carefully about how much control a service provider has over the data. “You [likely] don’t want [the private cloud storage provider] to have free reign of a company’s environment. But if a company pursues this option, then they need to have a plan for the implementation and oversight of the system and the vendor,” Malec says. time, things may not go very well if the audit finds no effective controls in place to ensure the protection of the environment.” THE RIGHT FIT It can be difficult to compel users to opt for an enterprise’s private cloud for sensitive data storage if it is difficult to access or use for individual purposes. Many users will also be tempted to rely on the many user-friendly data storage alternatives available in the consumer space. The remedy is to take a survey of consumer storage solutions that users know and use for their own purposes and then find a private cloud solution that best matches what they are already accustomed to. “A big mistake is to not ask the users what their experiences are like when they use [consumer] cloud storage solutions,” Staten says. “Enterprises really need to know what experiences they have to match.” Private cloud storage solutions that are at least as easy to use as consumer storage services can entice users to comply with policy when a private cloud needs to be used. Some private cloud data storage environments have interfaces that look and function like a PC hard drive. Other offerings reflect the popular Dropbox usage model. But user adoption of private cloud storage in the enterprise can be too successful. Some users might rely on it more than they should, without realizing the expense involved. According to Gartner, a private cloud storage service that includes automatic disaster recovery and downtime of less than 30 minutes per year can cost as much as $20 per gigabyte per month. Comparatively, a public cloud storage solution might cost $1 per gigabyte per month and only offer one-hour disaster recovery and suffer from disruptions of up to 48 hours per year, according to Gartner. The allocation of private cloud storage should thus be carefully managed. “We see tons of people putting way more files than they should on a private cloud even though it is much more expensive than a public cloud,” says Max Haskvitz, operations manager for eRacks (www.eracks.com). “There are also cases where executives might save all of their data to a private cloud storage network unnecessarily while all of the other employees’ data is automatically stored on a public cloud, including sensitive data that should be on a private cloud.” How should businesses address this problem? “I would prepare a basic map of data that you plan to put up on the cloud,” says Haskvitz, “so you have a visual of your storage and structure needs.” NO CONNECTION, NO SERVICE One of the cloud’s inherent risks is that it requires an Internet connection to function. Companies often need 24/7 access to critical data, so it’s important to ensure accessibility for critical data stored on a private cloud. One way to help ensure that connectivity will never be lost is to have two additional high-speed connections between the cloud network and the enterprise as a backup in case the main connection fails. “Someone can put a backhoe through the cable, or it could be dug up by someone wanting to try and reclaim the scrap value of it,” Longbottom says. “There is always a need to ensure that there is a redundancy of connection.” Employing on-premise NAS (network- attached storage) systems can offer an additional layer of protection in case of a disruption. “Having a duplicate copy of your important storage data on a private cloud network as well onsite on a NAS system is [highly advisable],” Haskvitz says. “Let’s say your private cloud connection gets interrupted for whatever reason, even for 30 minutes—that can really [cause problems] with a sale.” Maintaining duplicate copies of all private cloud data on a NAS system is a sound practice as well, even if the data is not mission-critical, Haskvitz says. “It never hurts to have an onsite NAS solution just to have yet another fallback for your data if the Internet goes down, the cloud access is interrupted, or you are in a sensitive setting that is not allowing outside access.”


From PC Today / May 2012