Ajeya Motaganahalli, Vice President, Engineering, FlashBlade and MD, India R&D, Pure Storage, in an interaction with CIOTechOutlook shares his views on how organizations can implement various techniques to optimize the performance & efficiency of cloud storage systems, how they can effectively manage their cloud storage usage to reduce costs and improve productivity and more.

What techniques can be used to optimize the performance and efficiency of cloud storage systems?

When organizations choose to store their data in the cloud, they need to consider the amount of data they want to store and the type of data they have. The volume of data could range from terabytes to several petabytes. Given that accessing data in the cloud can be expensive, organizations must also consider how frequently the data will be accessed. Some organizations choose to store certain types of data in the cloud and others in their data center to avoid high access costs.

To optimize the performance and efficiency of cloud storage, organizations can use techniques such as compression (reducing the size of the data footprint), deduplication (a process that eliminates multiple data copies), tiering (storing data in different classes of storage - high & low performance based on the frequency of access), as well as data caching in memory for fast access.

By carefully evaluating these factors, organizations can optimize their cloud storage, boost efficiency, and minimize expenses.

How can organizations effectively manage their cloud storage usage to reduce costs and improve productivity?

Organizations must be cost-conscious and productive when managing their cloud storage usage. Intelligent tiering is a useful technique that involves setting up a cache layer close to the application or having a hot tier high-performance storage in the data center for frequently accessed data. This speeds up access to the data without having to retrieve it from the cloud each time. Meanwhile, cheaper cloud storage options can be used for data that is not accessed as often. In an all-cloud scenario, the approach could be to tier data in the cloud by storing data in different classes of storage - high & low performance based on the frequency of access.

To successfully implement intelligent tiering, it is necessary to establish storage policies and regularly audit the data to ensure it is stored in the most suitable tier. Active management is critical to optimize storage and prevent excessive costs. Organizations can automate this process using tools that provide insights on data usage and sound alarms when spending limits are reached.

What are the key benefits of implementing cloud tiering and data compression in cloud storage environments?

Cloud tiering and compression are storage strategies that can help businesses optimize their performance and cost-effectiveness. Cloud tiering stores infrequently accessed data in cost-effective storage options, while frequently accessed data is stored in high-performance tiers based on high-performance All Flash storage. This not only saves on storage costs but also improves overall application performance. As an example, Pure Storage’s FlashBlade/S is a high-performance storage option for AI/ML, while FlashBlade/E is ideal for storing large data sets that are not high-performance sensitive (referred to as warm and cold data). This tiering approach helps organizations manage their data and optimize storage costs.

On the other hand, compression reduces the size of data, making them easier to transfer and saving on storage costs. This technique is particularly useful when dealing with large data sets or transferring data over slow or unreliable network connections.

How can organizations ensure data security and compliance when using cloud storage platforms?

It is essential to implement access controls with role-based access. Encryption is also important to ensure the data is useless if compromised. Regular security audits and employee training are also necessary. It's crucial to comply with relevant regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA, to ensure data security and avoid legal or financial consequences.

Practically, what’s most important is to be able to get your organization back on its feet in case there is a breach by recovering from that quickly. That can be done by creating snapshots of your data at regular intervals that allow you to roll back to a previous version of your data snapshot in the event of a ransomware attack. For example, Pure Storage has a feature called SafeMode that takes snapshots of data at a rapid frequency and encrypts them in different locations, allowing you to roll back to a previous snapshot in case of a ransomware attack.

What role does automation play in improving cloud storage efficiency and management processes?

Observability is a critical aspect of dealing with the cloud, whether it’s for applications or storage. It involves being able to see what is happening, take action, and report what has happened. Three crucial components of observability are logging, tracing, and reporting, which allow for monitoring and alerting, cost optimization, and compliance with laws.

Logging involves capturing events and storing them in a log file to understand what happened, while tracing helps identify the cause of an issue by tracking the execution of a request or transaction. Reporting allows for summarizing and communicating what happened in a meaningful way.

Automation tools for auto-provisioning storage boost efficiency and help rapidly scale your application with growth in transactions and users. For example, an automation policy can be set up to add ten terabytes of capacity to a database every time it hits 90% of the provisioned capacity. This enables automatic scaling without waiting for an alarm to trigger.

Overall, observability is critical for any modern data-based application seeking to optimize resources, comply with regulations, and improve the overall efficiency of its cloud infrastructure

What are the best practices for selecting and deploying cloud storage solutions that meet the specific needs of an organization?

When it comes to storing data, organizations need to consider the volume of data they have and how often they need to access it. Cloud storage is a good option during development but can become expensive and pose performance and cost escalation issues when storing large amounts of data in production. Therefore, a hybrid strategy that balances on-premises storage with cloud storage is recommended.

An organization should determine what data to keep on-premises, typically the data that is hot, accessed frequently, and rapidly scaling, which can benefit from intelligent caching mechanisms. The data that goes to the cloud should be warm and cold and not accessed as regularly. For organizations with multiple operations, cloud storage can be a suitable option, but some data may still need to be kept on-premises for caching and replication.

Organizations could consider evaluating their long-term economic interests and adopt a data strategy that balances on-premises and cloud storage. This approach can help to ensure optimal performance, cost savings, and data accessibility.