This article discusses using Komprise to analyze data across on-premises storage to identify cold data and then move it to Google Cloud Storage.

Typically, 60% to 80% of data is infrequently accessed within months of creation, yet consumes the same expensive resources as hot data.

Komprise is analytics-driven data management software that analyzes data usage and growth across on-premises storage. Komprise identifies cold data and then moves it transparently to the appropriate class of Cloud Storage based on customer-defined policies.

To support both existing on-premises and new cloud-native use cases, the moved data is accessible both as files, exactly as before, and as files or objects in the cloud.

As data footprints expand rapidly, Komprise is working with customers across industries such as financial services, healthcare, and engineering who are streamlining costs, building a path to the cloud, and increasing the resiliency of their data in use cases like the following:

Read the entire article here,Using Komprise to Archive Cold Data to Cloud Storage

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Using Komprise to Archive Cold Data to Cloud Storage - DABCC.com

Moore's Law the idea that computing processing power doubles roughly every two years may be dying. But another, similarly-named concept will be true forever: Murphy's Law. And because anything that can go wrong probably will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, it's a good idea to invest in some kind of data backup service for your most important documents, photos and other files.

These seven cloud-based backup options will keep you covered in case of an emergency, large or small, ensuring your most vital data is ready to be downloaded whenever and wherever you need it.

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Acronis True Image

Making a "full-image" backup of your computer's hard drive is the most comprehensive way to ensure none of your files go missing. Acronis True Image will clone your disk and host it in the cloud for prices starting at $39 per year.

It's a good insurance policy that also includes a physical backup to store on an external hard drive, as well as downloads of precious files from your Facebook account and mobile devices. Prices increase if you want to use True Image on more than one computer or require larger amounts of space. Acronis also offers a premium service starting at $99 per year that will protect your data from ransomware, an increasing problem online .

Backblaze

Without looking at your computer, ask yourself how many files you want to back up. Or, if that's impossible to answer, guess how much storage you need. If you don't know the answer, Backblaze might be the perfect solution.

Offering storage for an unlimited amount of files, no matter their size, and at whatever speed you want to up- or download them, this easy-to-use backup service is great for setting it and forgetting it. And if downloading your files is cumbersome (or just plain impossible, for whatever reason), your data can be shipped to you on a flash drive or USB hard drive. Encrypting your files and requiring two-factor authentication, the service does its best to keep both Mac and Windows-based customers secure. Backblaze costs $5 per month, with discounted rates for users who pay in advance for a year or two of service.=

Carbonite

One of the first (and therefore more popular) cloud backup programs, Carbonite offers three tiers of data-syncing options, all of which come with unlimited storage space.

The $59-per-year basic Carbonite plan provides automatic backups, remote access, and free support, should you ever have a problem retrieving your files. For $99-per-year, Carbonite Plus provides everything on the basic plan, plus the ability to connect to external hard drives, so you can sync the data that's too big to fit on your PC or Mac. The highest tier service, the $149-per-year Carbonite Prime, offers all that plus the ability to have your files physically couriered to your location if you have a problem downloading them. Unfortunately, these prices only apply to one computer, and only PC users can mirror their hard drives using this service, so Carbonite might not be a great fit for everyone.

Crashplan

For as little as $59-per-year for one computer or as much as $149-per-year for 10 Linux, Mac, or Windows machines, Crashplan can ensure that your data remains safe in the cloud.

Boasting unlimited online storage under both plans, the company's software packs some clever, unique offerings, like the ability to pause backups when your computer's battery is low or when you're on certain Wi-Fi networks. Crashplan transmits and stores your data in encrypted form, keeping your personal information safe, even when it's off your system. Crashplan also offers to keep your deleted files forever, making it perfect for digital pack rats and worrywarts alike.

iDrive

Offering one terabyte of online storage for $69-per-year, iDrive is a feature-packed backup option for Mac, PC, iOS and Android users alike.

With the ability to save data from an unlimited amount of machines online, the service performs real-time backups and file syncing, which means files and even parts of files are refreshed across devices. A mobile-friendly backup solution, you can access files backed up on your PCs from your iOS and Android devices. iDrive also has a Smart Docs feature which recognizes details of documents after users take a photo of them and upload them online.

Apple iCloud

Though not technically a full backup service for your computer, Apple iCloud offers Mac and iPhone users many protections that are worth the nominal investment. Designed as an online repository for all the photos, music, videos, and documents you use across Apple's ecosystem, the free (for 5 gigabytes of online storage) service can help you restore everything from bookmarks to emails if something happens to your device.

While you can pay up to $20 per month for as much as 2 terabytes of storage, the service will not automatically clone your computer's hard drive. But curiously, you can turn on "iCloud Backup" on your iOS devices to store copies of your mobile devices online. And it's just that easy to do, making a bigger investment in iCloud storage a worthwhile move for many Apple fans.

Google Drive

More similar to Apple's iCloud storage service than to the drive-cloning backup solutions offered in this list, Google Drive offers users 15 gigabytes of online space for free, which quickly adds up once subscribers elect for the 100 gigabyte option for $1.99-per-month, one terabyte for $9.99-per-month, or 10 terabytes for $99 monthly. That's a lot of storage, and through Google's software smarts, it's easy to use and share those files online. You can even copy entire sections of your computer's hard drive and upload them to your Google Drive if you want, but you'll need the company's Google Drive application for that.

Read more here:
The Best Cloud Storage and Backup Services | Time.com - TIME

It's news that it may cause big double-takes in the world of Big Data. MapR announced Tuesday that the file system in its Converged Data Platform Hadoop distribution has been chosen by SAP to be used as its cloud storage technology for HANA, SAP IQ, and similar data workloads.

You read that right: MapR File System (MapR-FS), the company's drop-in replacement for the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), has been selected by a major software company for general-purpose cloud storage, or at least purposes beyond Hadoop and Spark.

It was always special MapR's file system was its original differentiator in the Hadoop market: unlike standard HDFS, which is optimized for reading, and supports writing to a file only once, MapR-FS fully supports the read-write capabilities of a conventional file system. That still doesn't explain why SAP would use it for broader purposes, of course.

But Vikram Gupta, Senior Director of Product Management at MapR, explained to me that, far from being just an enhanced version of HDFS, MapR-FS was in fact implemented as a standard file system from the get-go. After the core file system was developed, an HDFS-compatible interface was built on top of it, allowing MapR to swap it into its Hadoop distro as a replacement for generic HDFS.

Polymorphic storage Meanwhile, the full file system is still in there, and additional interfaces for NFS and POSIX sit on top of it as well. This allows different file system clients to treat MapR-FS differently, while all of them physically read and write data to the same place. That's important for companies who wouldn't want to use standard HDFS to store the "gold" copies of their data, but also don't want to pay the twin penalties of data movement and duplication.

Apparently, that's important to SAP too.

Distributed storage, and elastic infrastructureOf course, HDFS itself (and thus MapR-FS' HDFS-like functionality) has features that make it work well in the cloud. First, it's a distributed file system, allowing multiple physical disks to be federated into a single storage volume. This allows for geo-distribution and mixing and matching of different drive types (for example, flash storage, SSD and spinning disks) into the system. That, in turn, allows for a storage hierarchy where data of different "temperatures" can be stored on different media. For example, frequently accessed data could be stored in flash while more archival, historical data could be kept on cheaper, spinning media.

HDFS and MapR-FS also have redundancy built in, keeping multiple replicas of each file, where each of those replicas is stored on separate physical drives. This makes both file systems resilient to the failure of any one drive, as bad drives can quickly be removed from the storage cluster and new drives added in their place just as easily. And that ability to add and remove disks so easily allows for the general elasticity that cloud computing demands.

It all makes sense now If Microsoft and Amazon swap in and recommend their own blob storage in their Hadoop services, to substitute for HDFS, then why can't SAP go the other way and take a storage system used in a customized Hadoop distribution as a more mainstream file store?

And this MapR-SAP deal isn't a one-off either. When I spoke with Gupta, he was adamant that additional, similar deals would be pursued with other licensees. MapR really sees its Converged Data Platform as just that, a platform. And and one that transcends Hadoop, Spark and maybe even traditional "data" itself.

Read more from the original source:
MapR File System selected by SAP for cloud storage layer - ZDNet

Oracle announced a new platform this week to help enterprises integrate cloud storage services with on-premises NAS storage systems. The platform, called Oracle Cloud Converged Storage, is based on Oracle's ZFS Cloud software, which is included in the latest Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance release.

The company is pitching the solution as the first truly converged storage solution that offers both public cloud and on-premises, high-performance NAS (network attached storage).

The company said the new tools will allow organizations to move data or applications from on-premises storage to the cloud more easily. There's no need for external cloud gateways or software, or cloud access licenses from legacy, on-premises vendors in order to access public clouds from their infrastructure platforms.

Easier Path to Integration

Oracle said its new approach significantly eases the migration burden for IT administrators as they move from their own on-premise platforms to public cloud integration. The difficulty usually comes when trying to integrate disparate environments with different security requirements and a variety of industry standards. Struggling with end-to-end visibility, diagnostics and support can also be a problem.

With its ZFS Cloud, Oracle thinks it can beat both public cloud providers who cannot deliver on-premises, high-performance storage systems, and also traditional hardware vendors who lack truly integrated public clouds. So says analyst Mark Peters of the Enterprise Strategy Group. Peters says Oracle's converged platform delivers "a genuine hybrid data ability with a 'cloud insurance option' built right into the storage system."

Oracle says the convergence of its storage cloud with ZFS Storage Appliances will provide enterprise clients with the same performance abilities as flash storage drives plus the added agility and simplicity of Oracle's cloud storage solution. The company said the converged system can be used for elastic application storage as well as back-up and recovery. Other uses include development, testing, active archive storage, and snapshot replica storage. It can also be used by Dev Ops with a single API for both on-premises and in the Oracle Storage Cloud, and for lift-and-shift workload migration. Newer applications can also leverage data both in Oracle ZFS Storage Appliances (shown above) and in the Oracle Storage Cloud without any application changes.

Cloud Meets On-Premises

"Cloud [technology] is forcing IT practitioners to rethink their organization's infrastructure to accommodate current technology while future-proofing their business for tomorrow," said Steve Zivanic, Oracle's VP of Storage and Converged Infrastructure. "By converging the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliances with Oracle Storage Cloud, organizations benefit from the highest performing storage systems for their on-premises needs, while seamlessly extending them to Oracle Cloud resources when necessary. Oracle ZFS Cloud is the unifying enabler that helps customers bridge the gap between their current infrastructure and plans for broader public cloud adoption."

The company said the new update also includes a series of innovations to the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance that extend Oracle Database dynamic automation capabilities. Oracle claims these updates can increase database administrator productivity by as much as ten times, as well as add all-flash pools to accelerate business applications.

The platform also includes new storage protocols to help automate storage tuning and cloud-scale data protection, with more than 62TB per hour of data backup.

Originally posted here:
ENTERPRISE HARDWARE Oracle Claims First Truly Converged Cloud/NAS Storage Platform - CIO Today

Network attached storage drives let you access files from any device on your network. Check out our NAS drive reviews and buyers guide. Store files across your network with 10 of the best NAS drives

By Benny Har-Even | 05 Apr 17

NAS drives are like cloud storage: you can access all your files from anywhere, both inside and outside of your home or office. You can use them to store and play your music and video collections, as well as documents and other files.

NAS stands for Network Attached Storage and as thename suggests it enables you to have a large amount of storage connected directly to your broadband router. This storage is therefore available to all your devices.

NAS drives are designed to be turned on permanently, which means you can have access to your music, movies, photos and documents at all times. Most have timers so you can set them to turn on and off during the hours you want.

One of the most popular reasons to buy an NAS drive is for media playback. Videos can be viewed on your TV, without having to connect a computer.

An NAS drive will use much less power than a regular PC, too,making itmuch cheaper to run. For ease of setup and ease of use, a dedicated NAS drive is hard to beat.

So what should you look for when choosing one to buy?

The first requirement is capacity. You'll need one that has enough storage to meet your needs now and in the future. Plenty of NAS drives come with no disks at all - these are known as diskless or bare drives. The advantage is that you can choose the drives you want and how much capacity you need.

You can now get disks up to 10TB is size, though for youll be paying at least 400 or so for the privilege. 4TB disks are arguably the current sweet spot, at around 120.

When you choose your disks, look for ones that have been designed to work specifically with NAS boxes. NAS-optimised features include more secure construction providing more resistance to vibration, which makes a lot of sense for a drive thats designed to be on the whole time. They also offer power management so they can adjust performance based on their temperature.

These drives also offer special features in firmware known by WD as TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) and by Samsung and Hitachi as command completion time limit (CCTL). This optimises the error correction for drives when they are installed in a RAID array (explained below) as is usually the case with NAS drives.

RAID stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks. RAID can be quite complex but at a basic level youll want to use it primarily to provide redundancy so if a disk fails your data is still safe. There are many variants but three of the most popular are known as RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 6.

Most NAS drives will offer at least two bays, which means that you can set them up as RAID 1. In this scenario the second drive is a mirror of the first, so if one drive fails completely all your data is safe on the other. You can then replace the faulty disk, and rebuild the RAID array (this will take many hours).

RAID 5 requires at least three drives and offers parity data. That means a RAID 5 array can withstand a single drive failure without losing data or access to data. As data is striped across three drives, reads are fast, but at the expensive of slower writes because of having to also write the parity data.

RAID 6 meanwhile requires four drives but offers both striped and dual parity, so two drives could fail and the RAID could still recover.

Whichever you choose however, dont consider RAID to be your only backup of your data. First, youre relying on the RAID array rebuilding successfully, and while from experience we know that it does work, it is another point of failure.

If the box just dies, or if something catastrophic happens like a fire, youll still lose all your data. To mitigate this you'll want another external backup, preferably to the cloud. Most NAS drives offer native applications for certain providers, but these will require subscription to the service and will not necessarily be from your preferred one.

Another feature to look out for is hot-swap capability, which enables you to take out or add a drive without having to power down first, which could be important if youre running business applications off your NAS and want to maintain uptime when replacing or adding a drive.

You should also consider whether youll need remote access to the drive. Previously this required signing up to a third-party DNS service, but these days with most NAS drives you can just sign up for an account with themanufacturer as you set up the drive. Login to the account and they'll handle the connectivity to your box at home. If privacy is a concern you many not wish to go down this route, but for ease of use it's the way to go.

Its also worth considering how powerful you need your NASs processor to be. The dedicated operating systems that NAS drives run arelightweight, but a faster processor and more memory will enable features such as transcoding.

This means that any media files will be converted on the fly into a playable format, so you dont have to rely on your client device being able to play the files smoothly. For example, HEVC H.265 files are becoming popular due to the small file sizes, but devices (aside from the latest 4K TVs) that can play this back natively are still uncommon.

Transcoding will deal with this for you if your NAS is powerful enough. However, if you have 4K files and want to play these on all your devices youll need a fast NAS.

Finally, you might want to consider to what use you'll be putting your NAS. As well as media a small business user will want to know what applications it has to offer, such as setting it up as an email server, a VPN server, or using it to host a website.

All-in-all the 216+II NAS matched up to our expectations from Synology and will be a very good choice for home or small business use. If you arent confident about installing hard disks, then this is the box to get as its easy and doesnt require tools. Theres a huge range of applications to choose from the processor SoC offers plenty of horsepower to run them on too and it all runs quietly. With its fantastically easy installation, setup, app support and general ease of use the Synology is a very solid choice. However, if you like the idea of direct hook up via HDMI you may be swayed by the slightly pricier QNAP TS-251A.

Read our Synology 216+II NAS review.

We liked the Asustor AS1004T for its ease of installation, it's relatively quiet operation in normal use and its decent performance. It isn't fast enough for hardware transcoding though, so youll need native support for all your files on all your client devices. Where it trumps the completion is that if offer a four-bay chassis where others at a similar price offer only two. If storage rather than performance is the priority then, it's a great choice and while the ADM interface isn't as accomplished looking as some of its rivals it's got the apps you'll likely need.

Read our Asustor AS1004T review.

The QNAP is an undoubtedly impressive NAS drive. Theres plenty of power for virtually all tasks, and H.265 aside it will handle anything you throw at it. The range of apps is very comprehensive and the interface is excellent. The downside is the lack of support for MKV from its native app, which will mean having to pay for Plex to play files on mobile devices. The unit was also noisier than we would have liked in operation and while its good value - its not cheap. If youre willing to stretch to paying this much for a diskless system, the QNAP TS-251A is the best featured NAS drive at the price.

Read our QNAP TS 251A review.

When it comes to ease of use the WE My Cloud Mirror is hard to beat. Initial setup is very easy and even sorting our remote access is simple too. For sharing music, movies, photos and documents it works a treat and performance is fine. The downside is that you dont get the huge range of apps that are available for other brands. However, if you prioritise ease of set up and ease of use the WD is worth looking at and with 4 TB of storage included for the price, its a great value option.

Read our WD My Cloud Mirror 4TB review.

Synology has made headlines with its new cut-price DS115j, and its recommended retail price of just 78. The performance has also been cut, along with useful features like USB 3.0, but if you need these the DS114 is still in the range for around 140. And if you really would rather not spend that, the cheaper DS115j will take on basic storage tasks, and still perform faster than some more expensive competition.

Read our Synology DS115j review.

The Netgears physical design and is very impressive, but we were troubled by issues that meant it lacked the appeal of drives weve tested from QNAP and Synology. Not all disks can be installed in a tool-less fashion and the interface for installing and using apps isnt the best weve seen, not is the range of choices. Performance is good, but the ARM processor doesnt quite have chops to handle 4K transcoding. Its a good NAS, but it would need to be cheaper for us to recommend it over the competition.

Read our Netgear ReadyNAS RN212 review.

The 216play will likely be a disappointment to 214play owners wondering about an upgrade. It makes sense only if you have - or will soon have - lots of 4K content that you need to transcode on the fly. Its performance is good, but if you don't need real-time transcoding, you may want to opt for a different DiskStation (or indeed another NAS entirely) which has the extra ports and SD slot which the 216play lacks.

Read our Synology DiskStation DS216play review.

The Synology DS414j may not be the most glamorous of NAS drives, if indeed there is a candidate leader, but it is well-made and packs just enough power to not embarrass itself in basic benchmark tests for its file-serving speed. That it runs the same carefully wrought and versatile operating system as its dearer brethren is a definite plus, making it suitable for small-scale business use as well as being turned to home entertainment duties.

Read our Synology DS414j review.

Synology's RRP for the DS415play is 372 and at that price or the inevitably lower real shop prices the company should have a winner on its hands. The competing QNAP TS-469L is faster and has better specifications but is over 100 more expensive. When you combine the performance, price and the siren-like draw of DSM 5.0 this could be a crowd pleaser for the multimedia NAS market.

Read our Synology DS415play NAS review.

The WD My Cloud EX2 has a few minor faults, but it's easy to use and provides good performance and reliability at an attractive price. There are more sophisticated NAS drives available for larger businesses, but the EX2 provides all the features that home users and small businesses are likely to need, and presents them in a straightforward manner that will appeal to people who might not have used a NAS drive before.

Read our WD My Cloud EX2 review.

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The best NAS drives - PC Advisor