https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Services Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • MSP 501 Information Center
    • 2021 MSP 501 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2021 MSP 501
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Top Gun 51
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Services Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • MSP 501 Information Center
    • 2021 MSP 501 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2021 MSP 501
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Top Gun 51
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

From the Industry


Sponsor Content

Clouds reflected in office buildings

5 Benefits and 3 Drawbacks of Using Cloud Storage for Your BaaS Offering

  • March 8, 2018

MSPs should consider these benefits and drawbacks when switching their Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) offerings to cloud storage. Each item is significant enough to warrant a dedicated article, but this should be a good primer for anyone considering moving their backups from on-premise disk to cloud storage.

Here are your five benefits of cloud storage:

1. Cloud Storage Can Save Costs
Economies of scale. Cloud vendors buy a lot of storage and pass those savings onto customers. But it’s more than a low per-GB cost that provides savings. Moving to the cloud reduces the need to purchase hard disks, the enclosures that contain them, the RAID cards that power the data redundancy, the electricity that powers them, and the hardware warranty services that protect them. But it also lowers management costs by reducing on-premise hardware and software management, simplifying monitoring, and reducing the need for extensive capacity planning. Instead, administrators can focus on other, more important, tasks.

2. Data Redundancy and Replication
Data redundancy is included. Most cloud storage vendors keep multiple copies of your data even within a single “data center” and offer great object durability to reduce any likelihood of data loss. But for those looking for even more protection, geographic replication options can make multiple copies of your data across regions. Some offer geo replication as a storage class option, while others offer replication services that quickly move data between data centers. Your backups are well protected.

3. Data Tiering for Cost Savings
Many cloud storage vendors offer different storage classes / data tiers. Select based on how quickly and frequently you restore backups and how long you plan to keep your backups in storage. For backups that need quick and/or frequent restores, consider using the vendor’s hot storage as retrieval is fast and the most cost-effective. For long-term storage, consider moving data to archive storage. Restores can be slower, and there might be additional costs to retrieve data, but the storage costs are considerably lower – especially if you plan to keep the backups for years. Some vendors offer object lifecycle policies that can automatically move data between tiers, which reduces administration and lets you more easily realize cost savings.

4. Regulatory Compliance
Keeping your backups in the same region as where the data originates may be best for regulatory compliance. Many cloud vendors offer data centers options all around the globe. If you have a need to store your EU customer data in an EU data center, look for a cloud storage vendor that can accommodate. An added benefit is that moving data to cloud storage in the same region is best for performance. Even if you’re not bound by regulation, you may find the improved performance worthwhile.

5. Ransomware/Malware Protection
Ransomware is just bad. Unfortunately, it’s also in the news with great frequency. One of the more sinister ransomware attributes is that the malware will look beyond the locally infected computer to the network for shares that have documents and files to encrypt. If you’re hit by ransomware or some other malware that is encrypting or destroying files, you might be happy that your cloud storage can help to protect against ransomware by offering some backup security advantages as it’s more difficult to access without proper authentication.

And here are your three drawbacks:

1. Backups May Be Slower
Internet bandwidth and cloud storage max ingest speeds may be more limited than the local network/disk. There’s also more communication latency involved. This is not normally an issue for backups of file servers and workstations, as the larger, more time-consuming full backups can usually run in the background for a longer period without any ill effects. After the initial full backup, incremental backups serve to reduce the backup size and reduce backup times. Data compression and deduplication help, too. But specialized applications like databases (for example, Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange) can be affected by longer backup times. You want those applications backed up during times of low activity and within your maintenance windows. In those cases, look to back up critical applications locally for best speed and then sweep up the backups to the cloud. Some cloud backup software will automate this process for you.

2. Restores May Be Slower
It’s all about internet bandwidth and rated cloud storage speed. Restoring an entire server may take longer. But you might find file-level restores are just as fast. The important takeaway is to make sure you can meet your contracted recovery time objectives (RTOs). If you can’t restore what’s needed in the committed time, then consider performing hybrid backups on those critical servers and send your backups to both local and cloud storage. Having two backup copies provides those critical workloads with the benefit of fast local restores (with no reliance on internet and cloud storage vendor availability), and the benefit of off-site, cloud storage protection for disaster recovery.

3. Higher Internet Utilization
If backups are running during business hours or times of heavy internet use, you may find internet-related activity performance suffers. Internet bandwidth may need to be controlled. Look to set up bandwidth utilization rules in your backup software (or limit via other network-controlled means) to ensure you don’t saturate your internet connection during times when access to the internet is needed for other critical business activity.

Conclusion
Transitioning from the comfort of using local disk to cloud storage can be stressful, but it’s happening more and more every day. The benefits of cloud storage over local disk are many. The drawbacks are few and can be easily managed. Are you planning the move? What excites or concerns you? Let us know in the comments below.

David Gugick, VP Product Management, CloudBerry, is an industry veteran in backup and disaster recovery and database tools, with over 20 years’ experience in software portfolio and product management, business development, building software from idea to product, engineering, and brand-building and awareness. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.

 

 

Tags: Agents Cloud Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Cloud From the Industry Security CloudBerry Lab Sponsor Content

Most Recent


  • money
    'An Era Has Ended': Inside the $61 Billion Broadcom-VMware Deal Rocking the Software Industry
    "VMware was in a quandary," an analyst told Channel Futures.
  • Chinese Cloaked Hackers
    The Gately Report: Cybereason Helps MSSPs Provide Unified Security, Details Massive Espionage Ring
    Also, Hornetsecurity announces its latest acquisition and MarketsandMarkets gives a sunny forecast for cloud security.
  • Cloud computing
    Dell Technologies: It’s No Longer a Cloud-First World
    The "on premises versus cloud" debate is dead – and that means opportunities for partners, says a Dell exec.
  • cybersecurity trends research for MSPs
    Increased Cybersecurity Vulnerability = Increased MSP Opportunities
    Gartner's 2022 cybersecurity trends research has excellent lessons and takeaways for MSPs.

5 comments

  1. Avatar Ray Odgers September 13, 2019 @ 1:50 pm
    Reply

    no mention that if your Internet is down you have no cloud, that would be my #1 drawback

  2. Avatar reema adhikari February 20, 2020 @ 5:04 am
    Reply

    Glad to read this post about the advantages of multiple user access in QuickBooks on the cloud. It has the ability to do the task in multiple areas at the same time as well as you can minimize your errors within some time. And another benefit is you can work frequently as a team.

  3. Avatar Rasheed whyte December 9, 2020 @ 6:13 am
    Reply

    Identify one benefit of cloud storage

  4. Avatar Benjamin Skott February 4, 2021 @ 3:01 am
    Reply

    A good way to combine multiple parts in a cloud migration. I see IaaS becoming more prevalent (AWS, Azure, GCP – in that order). Many MSFT stores are looking at the dotNET core on Linux. Most of them aim to reduce the time to go to the cloud by automating parts of the process.
    https://axisbits.com/blog/Going-Remote-11-Business-Benefits-of-Moving-to-the-Cloud

  5. Avatar Wayne walker June 30, 2021 @ 8:30 am
    Reply

    Data and in the form of any software, is a basic necessity if an individual, to protect their private info’s. Not just to save you from saving time and effort but also protects your files from hackers.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • M&A
    Why All MSPs Need to Understand the M&A Landscape
  • hurricane season
    4 Things MSPs Should Consider When Prepping for Hurricane Season
  • zero-trust
    The Benefits of Zero-Trust Security over VPNs
  • edge computing
    How to Keep Edge Computing Sites Truly Autonomous

Upcoming Events

View all

Channel Partners Europe

June 14, 2022 - June 15, 2022

MSP Summit

September 13, 2022 - September 16, 2022

Galleries

View all

‘An Era Has Ended’: Inside the $61 Billion Broadcom-VMware Deal Rocking the Software Industry

May 26, 2022

The Gately Report: Cybereason Helps MSSPs Provide Unified Security, Details Massive Espionage Ring

May 26, 2022

IBM, F5, Appgate, Axonius, CyberGRX Among ‘Must-See’ Vendors at RSA

May 25, 2022

Industry Perspectives

View all

Increased Cybersecurity Vulnerability = Increased MSP Opportunities

May 25, 2022

Leverage Your MSP’s People Power

May 24, 2022

How SD-WAN Helps Secure the Expanding Network Perimeter

May 19, 2022

Webinars

View all

Simplifying SaaS Security for MSPs

April 27, 2022

How to Supercharge The Network to Support Your IT Superhero Moves

May 3, 2022

The 2022 MSP Challenge: Scale Service Delivery Despite the Talent Gap

April 21, 2022

White Papers

View all

Work Goes Remote – (and Other Top ITOps Trends)

May 25, 2022

The New Bottom Line: How MSPs Can Meet the Healthcare Crisis While Evolving Their Businesses

April 19, 2022

How to build a Security Operations Center (on a budget)

April 4, 2022

Channel Futures TV

View all

AT&T, Microsoft, Cisco, ThreatLocker on Unlocking Partner Potential

Agents Share ‘Secrets,’ Industry Opportunity

May 11, 2022

Vonage Addresses Potential Partner Opportunity via Acquisition by Ericsson

May 5, 2022

Lumen Technologies ‘Built for Growth and Scale’

May 4, 2022

Twitter

ChannelFutures

Everyone's talking about the massive Broadcom-VMware deal. @AnuragTechaisle, @Dataprise, @Carousel_Ind, @imlazar an… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 26, 2022
ChannelFutures

Our latest Gately Report features @cybereason on MSSPs and growth, @Hornetsecurity acquisition, @marketsandmarkets… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 26, 2022
ChannelFutures

“The ‘on premises versus cloud’ debate is dead” @DellTech @DellTechUK @DayneTurbitt explains the opportunity for… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 26, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@Broadcom's acquisition of @VMware comes as the chipmaker reports that infrastructure software accounted for 23% o… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 26, 2022
ChannelFutures

Are your #MSP clients struggling to handle their cybersecurity vulnerability? #cybersecurity #cyberthreats… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 25, 2022
ChannelFutures

Introducing the 2022 Channel Futures MSP 501: The best of the best. Register for the reveal webinar here.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 25, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@Tanium launches new Technology Partner Program. #endpointdata dlvr.it/SR3pvw https://t.co/5DL6gvTAhX

May 25, 2022
ChannelFutures

EMA's picks for must-see vendors at next month's @RSAConference: @AppGateSecurity, @AxoniusInc, @coalfire,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

May 25, 2022

MSSP Insider

Business advice for MSSPs and news from the broader security channel.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X