Storage Services

STC offers a complete range of cloud storage services to support both application and archival compliance requirements. Select from object, file, and block storage services as well as cloud data migration options to start designing the foundation of your cloud IT environment.

What is cloud storage?

Cloud storage is a cloud computing model that stores data on the Internet through a cloud computing provider who manages and operates data storage as a service. It’s delivered on demand with just-in-time capacity and costs, and eliminates buying and managing your own data storage infrastructure. This gives you agility, global scale and durability, with “anytime, anywhere” data access.

It involves at least one data server that a user connects to via the internet. The user sends files manually or in an automated fashion over the Internet to the data server which forwards the information to multiple servers. The stored data is then accessible through a web-based interface. Cloud storage systems involve vast numbers of data servers to ensure their availability. That way, if one server requires maintenance or fails, the user can rest assured that the data has been replicated elsewhere to ensure availability.

Types of Cloud Storage Services

Amazon Simple Storage Services (S3)

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. This means customers of all sizes and industries can use it to store and protect any amount of data for a range of use cases, such as websites, mobile applications, backup and restore, archive, enterprise applications, IoT devices, and big data analytics. Amazon S3 provides easy-to-use management features so you can organize your data and configure finely-tuned access controls to meet your specific business, organizational, and compliance requirements. Amazon S3 is designed for 99.999999999% (11 9’s) of durability, and stores data for millions of applications for companies all around the world.

Classification of Cloud Storage

Private Cloud

The infrastructure is used by a single person or company hence high level of privacy and security. When designing the infrastructure of a private cloud, the specific needs of the company as well specific administrative controls are integrated with the storage concerns so as to enable ease of data access and increase security level. The infrastructure could be designed at the organisation’s premises or could be off-site and be accessible to the owner of the data

Public Cloud

Data and files of an organisation are located within the premises of the company offering the cloud storage services. Also the infrastructure is shared, and so are the resources used. Due to the high amounts of data which might be stored at a given time, public cloud storage companies usually ensure that the servers they use are of high performance hence effectiveness in the cloud storage services offered.

Hybrid Cloud

This is an instance where by there are different categories of data which a business handles and such data will require different storage methods. Therefore in hybrid cloud storage, both private and public cloud storage infrastructures are combined and put into use with each storing different data. Banks can have clients data stored in public cloud where the clients can interact with the banking official and have their confidential account details could be stored in private cloud

Ways to use cloud storage

Backup and Recovery

Cloud storage brings low cost, high durability, and extreme scale to backup and recovery solutions. Embedded data management policies can automatically migrate data to lower-cost tiers based on frequency or timing settings, and archival vaults can be created to help comply with legal or regulatory requirements

Software Test and Development

Software test and development environments often require separate, independent, and duplicate storage environments to be built out, managed, and decommissioned. In addition to the time required, the up-front capital costs required can be extensive. Some of the largest and most valuable companies in the world have created applications in record time by leveraging the flexibility, performance, and low cost of cloud storage. Even the simplest static websites can be improved for an amazingly low cost. Developers all over the world are turning to pay-as-you go storage options that remove management and scale headaches.

Cloud Data Migration

The availability, durability, and cost benefits of cloud storage can be very compelling to business owners, but traditional IT functional owners like storage, backup, networking, security, and compliance administrators may have concerns around the realities of transferring large amounts of data to the cloud. Cloud data migration services can simplify migrating storage into the cloud by addressing high network costs, long transfer times, and security concerns.

Benefits of Cloud Storage

Total Cost of Ownership

With cloud storage, there is no hardware to purchase, storage to provision, or capital being used for “someday” scenarios. You can add or remove capacity on demand, quickly change performance and retention characteristics, and only pay for storage that you actually use. Less frequently accessed data can even be automatically moved to lower cost tiers in accordance with auditable rules, driving economies of scale.

Time to Deployment

When development teams are ready to execute, infrastructure should never slow them down. Cloud storage allows IT to quickly deliver the exact amount of storage needed, right when it’s needed. This allows IT to focus on solving complex application problems instead of having to manage storage systems.

Information Management

Centralizing storage in the cloud creates a tremendous leverage point for new use cases. By using cloud storage life-cycle management policies, you can perform powerful information management tasks including automated tiering or locking down data in support of compliance requirements.