Hybrid Cloud Storage

The exponential growth of data has made managing backups more difficult than ever before. Traditional on-premises backup methods such as tape libraries and backup appliances can be challenged to scale as data volumes do, and maintaining secondary standby sites can be prohibitively expensive.

Enterprises often look at using the AWS Cloud for their backup, archive, and home directory data because they can enjoy the advantages of cloud storage with simple changes, for instance switching backup targets to be Amazon S3, or a local cloud gateway appliance.

Whether you want to seamlessly shift your tape backups to a cloud-based VTL, backup databases to a file share interface to Amazon S3, or use your backup applications directly with object storage, AWS can help. Moving backups to AWS can help reduce the significant costs in securing, storing, and managing that data on-premises.  

Unstructured or file data, whether from home directories, media and content archives, or applications, is a big source of data growth. Customers have commonly stored file data on Network Area Storage (NAS) arrays, or even file server VMs, but the cost and operational burden of buying, managing, and replacing storage infrastructure on-premises is a distraction from IT teams' priorities of increasing agility and innovation, strengthening security, and reducing cost.

AWS can help IT teams with hybrid cloud storage architectures that meet common on-premises file needs, from native Windows home directories with Amazon FSx for Windows, migrating file server workloads, team drives and user home drives to Amazon WorkDocs, enabling online content archives and distribution with AWS Storage Gateway, or hybrid processing and machine learning workflows with AWS DataSync.

Adding capacity to on-premises NAS and SAN storage arrays, and provisioning new ones on a regular basis, consumes staff time, budgets, and rack space. Sometimes it's impossible to get new capacity as quickly as applications and business groups need it, because of procurement cycles, hardware scalability, or physical infrastructure and power limits.

Connecting AWS Storage to your on-premises applications and infrastructure gives you a flexible buffer for application file data, block volumes, snapshot or tape backup pools that can grow as needed, extending the life of your investments, reducing future infrastructure purchases, and helping your organization gracefully manage capacity fluctuations.