Object storage for the challenges of the digital age

Object storage, with its virtually infinite capacity and low cost, has a long history of deployment for backup, archiving, disaster recovery, and regulatory compliance. But the demands of today’s data-centric organizations have put dusty storage closet technology at the center of the digital transformation scene.

For any technology decision maker thinking about a global data strategy, having a large central repository, also known as a data lake, is the preferred approach – this helps break down silos and aggregate data from across the board. several sources for the type of analysis. data that delivers business value. Object storage is the most effective underlying technology for applying data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence to these large data warehouses, says Scott Sinclair, storage analyst at Market Researcher Enterprise Strategy Group.

“The biggest benefit of object storage is that it adds more value to raw data. It doesn’t just store files; it adds context, ”says Paul Schindeler, former IDC analyst and current CEO of Dutch consultancy Data Matters. An object store includes metadata or tags, making it easy for businesses to find large volumes of data, determine the source of the data, whether it has been tampered with, and most importantly, set policies and maintain records. verifiable records on who can view the file. , who can open it and who can download data.

Today, most businesses use a combination of storage types: file storage, block storage, and object storage. But object storage usage is increasing for several reasons: speed, scalability, searchability, security, data integrity, reliability, and ransomware protection. And it’s the wave of the future in big data analytics.

Object storage yesterday and today

Object storage was developed in the 1990s to handle data stores that were just too large to back up with file and block storage, Sinclair says. When introduced, the near infinite scalability, low cost, and immutability of object storage made it ideal for backup and restore, long-term archiving, and compliance with regulations such as Insurance Portability and Liability Law. de Salud, in medical care, and Sarbanes-Oxley. , in the banking sector.

The next milestone in the evolution of object storage has been the rise of cloud storage. Cloud service provider Amazon Web Services has chosen object storage architecture as the basis for its popular Simple Storage Service (S3), and object storage has already become the standard platform for all cloud storage from Google. , Microsoft or others. Additionally, S3 protocols have become the industry standard for modern data-centric applications, whether running in the cloud or in a corporate data center.

More recently, organizations have realized they need to do more than park and protect their data; They must extract value from vast treasures of historical data, as well as new data sources and types of data, such as data from sensors, videos and images from the Internet of Things. This is where item storage really shines. It has become the platform on which organizations develop their data analysis capabilities to modernize their IT environments, create innovation and drive digital transformation.

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