CXL memory pooling could drastically increase the amount of memory available to in-memory applications, such as Redis with its database. But what does Redis itself think?

Memory pooling with CXL uses the Computer eXpress Link protocol, based on the PCIe 5 bus, to enable servers to access larger pools of memory than they could if they only used local, socket-accessed DRAM.

We spoke to Redis CTO and co-founder Yiftach Shoolman, who thinks CXL memory pooling is a positivre development.

Blocks and Files: How do you see CXL 2.0 memory pooling affecting Redis?

Yiftach Shoolman: Redis is an in-memory real-time datastore (cache, database, and everything in between); as such, CXL enables Redis to support larger datasets at a lower price per GB as it extends the capacity of each node in the Redis cluster with more cost-effective DRAM.

Furthermore, CXL enables the deployment of more memory per core (or virtual cores) in each node in the Redis cluster. This is great for users who use Redis Enterprise (our commercial software and cloud service) as they can now deploy more databases or caches on the same infrastructure and reduce their deployment costs using the built-in multi-tenant capability of Redis Enterprise.

Blocks and Files: How could Redis manage the access speed discrepancy between a servers directly connected DRAM and the CXL memory pool?

Yiftach Shoolman: Redis Enterprise uses its Redis on Flash technology to enable memory tiering capabilities, in which hot objects are stored in DRAM, and warm objects are stored in SSD. CXL provides another (middle) tier that can potentially extend this hierarchy, i.e. hot objects will be stored in DRAM, the warm objects in CXL (cheap memory or Persistent Memory), and cold objects in SSD.

Blocks and Files: Is there a role for storage class memory in a CXL memory pool?

Yiftach Shoolman: Yes, the CXL standard supports DRAM memory and NAND flash memory like Intels Persistent Memory. And its up to the infrastructure providers to decide the ratio between the different memory technologies that are (or will be) available for the users.

Blocks and Files: Will CXL memory pooling be more relevant to customers of hyperscale cloud providers or enterprises?

Yiftach Shoolman: I believe we are still in the early stages of adoption. That said, and theoretically speaking, enterprises have more flexibility to decide about the type of hardware they will use in their infrastructure. But, on the other hand, if the hyperscale cloud providers find CXL attractive, the adoption of this technology for mainstream use cases will be much faster.

Blocks and Files: How might such Redis customers differ in their use of CXL memory pooling? Will it just or mostly be the sheer size of the memory pool?

Yiftach Shoolman: Sizing is just one parameter. The others are the type of memory they would like to use with CXL. Is it regular DRAM, or is it slower but cheaper DRAM or Persistent Memory?

Blocks and Files: How could the data in Redis in a CXL memory pool be persisted and then protected?

Yiftach Shoolman: From the Redis perspective, CXL is just another pool of memory. Therefore each one of the Redis persistent mechanisms will continue to operate as if CXL were a regular DDR memory.

Blocks and Files: Are there other points relevant to Redis and CXL memory pooling?

Yiftach Shoolman: I believe the success of CXL memory pooling is mainly dependent on the adoption of the hyperscale cloud providers. Without it, CXL might be just a niche solution for specific use cases.

Hyperscaler adoption of CXL memory pooling could be a tipping point in Shoolmans thinking. Such large-scale adoption would encourage CXL hardware development and also facilitate cloud bursting of CXL memory-pooled applications by enterprises giving them access to potentially much larger memory pools than they could afford themselves.

A note about CXL and storage-class memory: Simon Thompson of Lenovo has written: We eagerly await the arrival of Compute Link Express (CXL) storage class systems!

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Redis is ready for CXL memory pooling Blocks and Files - Blocks and Files

NetApp, a global cloud-led, data-centric software company, and TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, announced a multi-year partnership.

NetApp will provide the sportscar maker with innovative hybrid cloud solutions that will help them continue to write car racing history.Porsche AG, a global automotive brand owned by Volkswagen Group, has begun shifting production towards electric or e-fuel powered vehicles in 2015. By the year 2030, Porsche AG aims for 80% of all vehicles sold to be electric. Tapping into NetApps real-time data services, TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team helps deliver on the vision of sustainable mobility while enabling the real-time adjustments that deliver superior race performance and help drive the next generation of Porsche electric vehicles.

Real-time data collaboration service for the racetrack

NetApp's hybrid cloud solutions enable TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team to accesstheir data trackside to support driver and team performance. This helps them make data-driven decisions in real-time, for example when to use the Formula E Attack Mode, which unlocks an additional 30 kilowatts of engine power. The rules about engaging Attack Mode are set by FIA shortly before every ePrix, hence it has a great impact on race strategy.

With data at the core of racing, business, and engineering decisions, the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team requires cutting-edge data management technology:

- Data and systems need to be available at the racetrack and fulfill demanding performance requirements.

- Digital data collected during the ePrix must be uploaded to the cloud for analysis while the race is still running.

- Cloud data needs to be processed by the team at Porsche Motorsport headquarters in Weissach, Germany for R&D.

- After the race, data must be transferred to the cloud so it can be utilized in the future, and to support crucial data services such as backup and archiving.

The hybrid cloud data solution designed by NetApp and Porsche in response combines cloud network-attached (NAS) storage services with Global File Cache to ensure data can flow seamlessly and quickly between different widely dispersed locations. It also integrates powerful NetApp data services to ensure version consistency, manage and monitor cloud resources, and protect Porsches intellectual property:

- Cloud Volumes ONTAP is the primary storage platform for TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team. The multicloud solution deployed on Azure acts as a hub that consolidates all the teams data.

- Global File Cache, the cloud volume edge capability provides local edge instances, enabling low-latency access to a common dataset, both at the on-premises development center in Weissach and the racetrack.

- Cloud Manager delivers centralized orchestration across hybrid cloud storage infrastructure and all data management services, so that TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team can manage, monitor and automate all their data software and hardware consumption.

Cloud Backup integrates as backup and archive layer for the consolidated cloud data.

Friedemann Kurz, Head of Motorsport IT, PorscheFormula E is a technology showcase and R&D backbone for Porsche and preserves our strong motorsports heritage on the road and on the track. Data is the defining element here, but it is not easy to harness when the racing team is always on the road. The solution created by NetApp is unique in the market in how it can move huge amounts of data at high speed while delivering an intuitive experience across edge, core and cloud so we can design better, faster cars for our racecar drivers and car enthusiasts everywhere.

James Whitemore, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at NetAppThis is a winning partnership in which two champions meet eye-to-eye. Porsche has secured over 30,000 wins in all major car racing series. NetApp has submitted more than 2,500 data innovation patents. Joining forces now, we are working to make our mark on the future of racing. Digital data is collected by the cars many sensors as they dart along the track and is processed synchronously to predict outcomes to aidthe trackside team.

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NetApp to Provide Porsche Motorsport with Innovative Hybrid Cloud Solutions - The Fast Mode

Cloud storage is essential to keep your files secure and access them from anywhere. Popular providers like Google Drive, iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, and Dropbox serve their purpose well but theyre not the most secure. These services often scan your files for marketing purposes.

To ensure your privacy, its wise to go for a secure cloud storage provider that uses zero-knowledge encryption and other security measures. Our top choices for the most secure and efficient cloud storage services are:

You can get Backblaze free for one year when you sign up for ExpressVPN. This gives you robust all-around protection, from your online browsing to your file storage.

Read all the details about the best cloud storage services in our full article below.

As we become increasingly reliant on technology, the need for secure cloud data storage becomes more apparent.

You may already be familiar with popular and free online storage providers, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and more. However, using these options come with security risks, as your data can be scanned by cloud providers for marketing purposes.

In this article, we look at the best and most secure cloud storage options on the market, and then we detail why settling for free storage isnt good enough. Keep reading to find out more.

A cloud storage service offers you a secure virtual space to keep your files. It can be accessed via your browser, a computer program, or a smartphone app.

A cloud storages purpose is to keep your files safe while making sure you can access them from anywhere, using any device. Using a cloud storage service can free up space on your computer or phonebecause now you dont need to store everything locally.

For a summary of the best secure cloud storage providers, see the table below.

MEGA is one of the best free cloud storage providers available. It offers you a generous 20 GB of free storage and uses zero-knowledge encryption so that nobody can get a hold of your data.

Moreover, all of its security features are available for free, so you only have to pay extra if you need more storage.

All your data is encrypted with a key derived from your password, meaning MEGA does not generate your encryption key and therefore doesnt have access to it.

MEGA lets you set up a recovery key that you can use to regain access to your data in case you ever do lose your password. Furthermore, if your device is ever infected by ransomware, you can use MEGAs file versioning and recovery features to revert your data to before the infection.

You can also create password-protected links when sharing files with others. Password-protected files can be downloaded without needing to sign up for a MEGA account. There are also some handy collaboration features that would be especially useful for businesses, such as private team messaging and secure video conferencing.

Although MEGA has a pretty generous free cloud storage plan, it has certain limits, such as a monthly file transfers quota. Also, the paid plans are pretty pricey when compared to some alternatives that are discussed below.

Another possible cause for concern is that a large portion of MEGAs stock is owned by individuals under with connections to the Chinese government, which is notorious for its invasive privacy policies. This may make some users uneasy, but theoretically, it shouldnt be a problem because of the end-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption at play. The security measures ensure that nobody can gain access to your sensitive information.

To sum up: MEGA offers user-controlled encryption and does not directly access your data. Compare that to Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive, where your files get scanned for information that could be of use to marketers. You can read more about this in our article about what Google knows about you.

If you want more details about MEGA, click the button below to go to its website.

iDrive offers minimal free storage but is one of the cheapest security-focused cloud storage services available.

This service uses 256-bit AES encryption to transfer files and secures them with a user-defined key that isnt stored anywhere on the services servers. So, nobody can access your data without your key. Its an excellent online backup and sharing solution for individuals, small businesses, and enterprises.

iDrive features continuous file syncing, even those on network drives. Files deleted from your computer dont automatically get deleted from the server, so theres no chance of losing something important.

In fact, iDrive keeps up to 30 previous versions of all files added to your account. iDrive also offers iDrive Express, a service that sends you a physical drive containing all your data in case you lose it.

Whether you use personal or business plans, iDrive has easy-to-use apps and a straightforward web interface. It lets you share files by email, Facebook, and Twitter.

Moreover, there are several specialized features for businesses, such as the iDrive Thin Client application that lets IT admins backup, restore, and manage all their connected devices via a centralized dashboard.

Lastly, iDrive is one of the best cloud storage for photos, with a facial recognition feature similar to that of Google Photos and other popular services. This helps you automatically organize your memories and sync them across all your linked devices.

You can also opt for the separate iDrive Photos service that lets you back up all the photos and videos from your iOS or Android device in original quality.

iDrive subscriptions start at just $0.99 for unlimited storage for the first year, with a 7-day free trial. Pricing for the second year onwards is under $10, which is cheaper than both iCloud and Google Photos.

For more details and to sign up, visit the iDrive website by clicking the button below:

It can be difficult to keep up with different subscription payments monthly or annually. pCloud eases this problem by offering a lifetime cloud storage plan for one upfront fee. This works out affordable in the long term and offers great value for money.

pCloud has options for individuals, families, and businesses. All plans boast advanced collaboration and file-sharing features for convenience. Moreover, you can back up files from third-party platforms, including Dropbox, Facebook, OneDrive, Google Drive, and Google Photos.

pCloud supports all file formats and has built-in media players for video and audio. Plus, there are ample features for file sharing, syncing, and accessing across multiple devices, file versioning, and recovery.

pCloud uses AES 256-bit encryption and the TLS/SSL protocol during transfers to protect data. Once files reach a data center, five copies are made and distributed to at least three servers to maximize security.It also uses two-factor authentication to protect your account if someone steals your credentials.

You can get more details about pCloud by visiting their website. Just click the button below.

Sync.com is a cloud storage service thats zero-knowledge compliant and an excellent option for both personal and business use.

Sync.com is a cloud storage service thats zero-knowledge compliant and an excellent option for both personal and business use.

The service uses AES-256-bit encryption, TLS protocol to protect files in transit, and two-factor authentication to ward off hacking. Its apps are easy to use, and you can send files of any size to anyone, even those without a Sync account.

Additionally, features like file requests, expiry dates, password protection, notifications, and permissions ensure that you can always control who views your files.

Sync.com is a particularly good cloud storage option for businesses and teams thanks to its affordable pricing, high security, and wide range of features. For instance, each user on a team gets 1TB of space for only $5 each per month. If you need extra storage, the Advanced plan for 10TB per user is just $15 per month.

At the same time, you can benefit from excellent versioning features. Businesses can restore file versions dating back a year, which can prove incredibly nifty for data recovery. Furthermore, the Account Rewind feature helps you restore your full account from, say, a ransomware attack.

Sync.com also includes full support for Microsoft Office formats including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Visio, as well as Adobe PDF, PSD, virtually all photo formats, and more. So, its perfect for most types of businesses globally.

Lastly, admin tools make it easy to manage users and keep your cloud storage functioning effectively. Check out Sync.com by clicking the button below.

Theres a subtle difference between cloud storage and online backups, even though the terms can be used interchangeably. Mainly, cloud storage is for files you are consistently using, editing, and sharing. It lets you easily sync your files across devices and share them with others.

Backups are more for making a copy of your files and folders to keep secure in the long term and recover in case of data loss. Backups are not necessarily something you access regularly, and many backup services often compress the data into readable files until you need to retrieve them.

One of the best cloud services for backups is Backblaze. Its perfect for both personal and business backup needs but be warned that there are no handy file syncing or collaboration features. It stands out by easing the process of backing up your files.

All youve got to do is install the app, and it will continuously back up all important data on your device with no additional intervention on your part. You can access your files through the web or the Backblaze mobile apps for iOS and Android. So, no matter where you are, your files will always be with you.

Further, your data is secured with AES 128-bit encryption both at rest and in transit. Although 256-bit would have been ideal, even 128-bit is adequate. If you want to learn more about the difference, check out our guide to encryption.

You can also set a private key to lock your files. But you will need to share this with Backblaze for file recovery, so it doesnt qualify as zero-knowledge encryption. During recovery, you can either download files from the web or have Backblaze ship them to you on a flash or external drive.

Note that, while Backblaze offers unlimited storage at an unbeatable price, you can only backup one computer per account.

The great news is that you can currently get Backblaze free for one year when you sign up for our favorite VPN service, ExpressVPN.

In addition to all the benefits of an ExpressVPN subscription, such as online privacy and anonymity, you can now also get a free year of Backblaze and enjoy secure backups for peace of mind.

Cloud storage is known by many names, such as online storage, cloud backup, file storage, file hosting, and online drives. All of these terms refer to storing files such as documents, photos, and videos on the cloud.

The cloud is basically a server that you can access remotely online. That means you can access it from anywhere on almost any device via the internet. Cloud storage services can be free or paid and have different cloud storage tools for varying business and personal needs.

Some of the benefits of using cloud storage are that it allows you to:

Youve probably already used some of the most popular cloud storage services, like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud, and Dropbox.

Of these, the first three are owned by Big Tech companies (Google, Microsoft, and Apple, respectively), while Dropbox was started by two MIT students and grew to be one of the most valuable startups in the world.

All of these file-sharing services make it easy to store, manage, and edit your files. They have incredibly user-friendly apps across all platforms such as Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Moreover, they offer great integrations with other apps, adding to their convenience and functionality. They are also widely used as some of the best free cloud storage options.

However, what you might not know is that these well-known cloud services come with some security risks. Although they all use the highest encryption standards to store your data securely, thats not enough to ensure complete security and privacy.

For instance, all the mainstream cloud storage services regularly scan your data to find information that may be useful for marketing products and services to you. They also expose your data to vulnerabilities during the transmission process.

Furthermore, these popular services lack zero-knowledge encryption. Zero-knowledge means that nobody except you can access your data, not even the cloud storage service provider. This is usually achieved by making you set a private key thats needed to decrypt your data.

Security is essential when choosing the best cloud storage but so are program features and the specific functionality you need for your purposes. After all, its a service you will be using long-term, so its best to do your research beforehand.

Never believe any offers of free unlimited cloud storage. Cloud services require a lot of money for upkeep, so if a website is hosting your data for free, thats a sign they may be making money off of you another way (such as selling your data to other companies).

In a nutshell, consider the following points when deciding which provider to go with:

Is the storage offer sufficient to store all your files now and in the future? Can you upgrade later on if you need to? How much free storage is available?

For instance, on our list above, pCloud offers the best value with their lifetime plans, which cost more upfront but work out cheaper overall. However, theres no way to upgrade if you want more storage than the maximum of 2 TB. So, if you expect that youll need more space down the line, you could go for something like iDrive, which offers up to 5 TB.

Does the cloud provider have apps for the platforms you use, whether its Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS? Is there an efficient web interface? Is the service available worldwide?

All of the cloud storage services weve mentioned above have an efficient desktop app and mobile app with availability in most countries. Moreover, they are also among the best free cloud storage providers.

Does the service use server-side and client-side encryption? Does it operate on zero-knowledge principles, or does the cloud storage provider have access to your private key? What are the privacy policies of the provider? Has it experienced data breaches in the past?

Does the cloud service let you easily collaborate with others when you need to? Can you share files and set permissions to control access? Is it easy to use?

Most of the services we picked are feature-rich and suitable for both personal and business use.

Does the cloud storage solution automatically sync and backup files on your computer? Or does it need regular intervention from you? What happens if you lose your data? Does it have a versioning system that can help you roll back to earlier files?

These factors can be life-saving in case your device gets affected by threats like viruses or ransomware that corrupt your data.

To sum up, whether you go for free storage or paid storage, its essential to invest in secure cloud storage that protects your privacy while keeping your files safe.

The great news is that all of our top options also offer some of the best free cloud storage options, which you can first try out to see if it works well for you. You can test out the file-sharing features, ease of use, and customer service before deciding which paid plan to opt for.

Its best to steer clear of the mainstream providers such as Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, and Microsoft OneDrive because even though they may be cheaper, they use your data for marketing purposes and expose your files to vulnerabilities during the file transfer process.

Remember: the best cloud storage that money can buy is the one that keeps your files safe and secure. Even if youre using AWS S3, its important to learn how to secure and protect your S3 buckets.

Best Cloud Storage Services: Frequently Asked Questions

Got questions about cloud storage services? Check out our FAQ below. Just click a question to see the answer.

A cloud storage service offers you a secure virtual space to store your files. It can be accessed from anywhere on the web or through a desktop or mobile app.

There are several things to consider when choosing a cloud storage service such as security, the volume of storage, and pricing. One of the options we recommend is pCloud, which has a lifetime plan you can pay for with a lumpsum one-time fee. Other options include MEGA, iDrive, and Sync.com.

iDrive offers a secure and affordable way to store your photos. The iDrive Photos servicelets you back up all the photos and videos from your iOS or Android device in original quality. It starts at just $0.99 for unlimited storage for the first year, with a 7-day free trial. Pricing for the second year onwards is under $10, which is cheaper than both iCloud and Google Photos.

Most cloud storage providers offer special plans for businesses. An excellent option is Sync.com. Each user on a team gets 1 TB of space for only $5 each per month.

At the same time, it offers advanced security, like AES-256-bit encryption, the secure TLS protocol to protect files in transit, and two-factor authentication. Its zero-knowledge compliant so that nobody, including Sync.com, can access your data.

Mainstream cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive promise safety but do not actually ensure it. This is because they expose your files to vulnerabilities during transfer and routinely scan your files for marketing purposes.

But safe cloud storage services do exist. These do not access your data at all and secure it with the safest encryption and protocols. Good examples are MEGA, iDrive, pCloud, and Sync.com.

Cloud storage and online backup are similar, but each has distinct functions.

Cloud storage is primarily for keeping files that you access routinely and share with others.

Backup, on the other hand, is about long-term storage for the purpose of recovery in case of data loss. Backup services dont usually have collaborative or file-sharing features. A great cloud backup provider is Backblaze that you can try for free for a year with an ExpressVPN subscription.

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Best Cloud Storage in 2022: Top 5 Most Secure Cloud Options

Object storage is a storage construct where data is not structured as files within folders, but rather as objects in a central storage solution. Its used to implement scalable and reliable storage solutions on-prem or in the cloud without any of the inherent constraints of traditional storage systems.

Aside from its use in applications, one of the most essential applications for object storage is in backup solutions as a destination for backup data storage. In this blog, we will cover object storage benefits and discuss the advantages of using NetApp Cloud Backup in order to create a reliable copy of your data.

The topics youll find here include:

Backup data was typically stored on backup tapes in traditional data center deployments. The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) drive has been the most prevalent standard for tape-based backup, with tapes often shipped offsite for long-term retention. However, the challenge with tape-based backup was that it required specialized tape drives for data retrieval and had the added overhead of maintaining the hardware and upgrading it every few years. Additionally, considering the exponential rate of data growth in organizations, tapes simply werent a scalable solution.

The next phase of backup media was disk drives. Though disks were more costly than tapes, they had several advantages that fuelled their popularity as backup storage. The main advantage of disks was the ease at which data could be restored and accessed without any specialized devices or software. They were also less susceptible to physical damage compared to magnetic tapes.

With increased data churn, especially in the range of petabytes, disks could also no longer be relied on as a viable long-term solution. Though discs could still be utilized for short-term retention and recovery, long-term backup data retention required a scalable, dependable, and less expensive option, which object storage provides.

The benefits of object storage have allowed it to become increasingly popular as the preferred destinationfor backup data. It has multiple advantages as a storage solution: cheaper storage rates, long-term retention, and hassle-free maintenance, to name a few. An object storage solution can either be cloud based or it can be a trusted on-prem object storage solution, such as NetApp StorageGRID. Lets take a look at some object storage benefits as a solution for backups.

Object storage uses a flat-file structure and therefore enables quicker data retrieval during restores. Theres no additional time required to mount and configure backup media for data retrieval. The process is smooth and instantaneous.

Object storage provides tiering capabilities where infrequently used data can be automatically moved to object storage and production data can be stored in costlier high performance storage tiers. In this scenario, backup and archival data would only be accessed during the event of data loss or an audit. Data tiering also helps businesses meet regulatory and compliance requirements while optimizing their storage utilization as per performance requirements.

Data is stored in a different format in object storage when compared to block storage devices. This offers an additional layer of security for backup data in object storage as it is stored in a different hardware and software platform in a different format, one that may not be affected by an initial outage or attack vector.

Object storage also provides versioning and object lock that makes the data tamper proof. If the primary data copy is compromised due to malware attacks or hardware/software defects, the data in object storage can still be used for quick recovery.

While using object storage for backup, the data can either be stored on-premises or in the cloud. Depending on your organizations architecture, a combination of an on-prem object storage solution like StoragGrid can be used along with object storage from any of the hyperscalers. This provides much needed flexibility, especially when aggregating backup data for short-term and long-term retention

When adopting cloud-based object storage for backup, customers have the following benefits.

The clouds pay-as-you-go model helps to convert CAPEX to OPEX. All of the major cloud storage services offer less expensive object-based cold and archive tiers that can be used for long-term retention of backup data at affordable rates.

All the major cloud service providers offer object storage as a managed service with 11 nines of durability and assured SLAs. The data is automatically stored in different zones and regions to protect from failures. The high availability and redundancy needs of backup storage are taken care of by the cloud platform with no additional overhead to the user.

Object storage in the cloud has data and access plane security controls built-in that can be configured by customers to protect backup data. All cloud platforms provide encryption at rest capabilities using a service provider manager or customer-managed keys to protect the data. Data in transit is also protected through HTTPS/TLS encrypted connections.

Object storage serves as the perfect destination for the offsite storage of data. This is especially helpful to organizations that follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy and need a copy of their data stored offsite. Compared to traditional methods of shipping tapes to offsite locations, transferring data to cloud object storage is hassle-free over a secure connection.

As an organization's data estate grows so does the backup data size. Object storage in the cloud helps meet this growing demand without the upfront investment in costly storage devices. It also eliminates the need for capacity planning as cloud storage services from all major platforms can scale up to petabytes of capacity on demand.

The pay-as-you-go model of object storage in the cloud helps to convert Capex to Opex. All cloud storage services have cheaper cold and archive tiers that can be used for long-term retention of backup data at affordable rates. The same process using conventional backupdevices could involve additional costs associated with device maintenance and upgrades.

NetApp Cloud Backupprovides reliable backup and restore services for data stored in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAPas well as on-premises ONTAP clusters. With a single-pane management view provided by Cloud Managerin the SaaS model, it offers a simple solution for automated backup of data from ONTAP clusters to object storage as shown in the reference architecture below:

There are a number of advantages to using NetApp Cloud Backup to harness the object storage advantages, irrespective of whether its stored on-prem or in the cloud.

NetApp Cloud Backup uses an incremental forever block-level backup approach to efficiently backup and restore data. The data is directly stored on object storage with minimal operational overhead.

Due to the incremental-forever nature of backup, the storage footprint required for backup data is minimal. Cloud object storage is cost-effectiveby nature, thereby lowering overall backup storage costs.

NetApp Cloud Backup automatically stores data in cloud object storage away from the source ONTAP cluster. This helps organizations with a 3-2-1 backup strategy to use object storage as their offsite storage location. In the event of data loss or corruption in the ONTAP cluster, backup copies arent impacted and point-in-time recovery of data is possible from the backup copies in object storage.

The data from ONTAP is backed up directlyto the object storage. There is no middleman technology or staging operations involved in the process. This helps improve the efficiency and security of the backup.

NetApp Cloud Backup provides a comprehensive backup solution that backs up the target files including open files, meta-data, and ACL. The granular restore feature allows you to restore entire volumes or specific files depending on your needs.

NetApp Cloud Backup uses NetApp SnapShottechnologyto create immutable backup copies that are stored in object storage. The backup copies are read-only and cant be altered by malicious malware. In the event of a malware attack, the backup copies will remain safe in cloud storage and can be used for a point-in-time restore of clean data.

The innate resiliency features of object storage enable backup data managed by NetApp Cloud Backup to be robust. As previously stated, object storage is designed for data durability of 99.999999999 percent (11 nines).

NetApp Cloud Backup uses AES-256-bit encryption to encrypt data at rest. When backup data is sent from ONTAP to cloud storage, TLS 1.2 HTTPS connections are used to encrypt the data in transit. The encryption key can be controlled by customers using their own key management solutions.

For organizations with high security demands or that prefer to keep their data and control plane on-premalso known as dark site deploymentCloud Backup offersthe option to back up data from a primary ONTAP to object storage stored on-prem with StorageGRID with zero internet connectivity needed.

For dark site deployment, not only is the data never leaves the customer's environment, and the control panel is disconnected from the internet and operated locally on premises. This requires maintaining the infrastructure on your own, but the benefits of object storage still come into play. In a dark site deployment the data plane and control plane exits on premises as shown below.

If you do not have a requirement for a fully dark site deployment, but still need the data to be on-premises you can take backup from ONTAP to StorageGRID using Cloud Backup . In this case data will still be on-premises but Cloud Backup can be deployed in the cloud. In this way, Cloud Backup and StorageGRID provide you the required flexibility to design the backup infrastructure as per your organizations compliance requirements.

Backup data is stored in object storage in a customers cloud environment. NetApp doesnt have access to the data, which is kept secure and handled by the customer. By default, public access to the object storage is turned off. Customers can further tie down the access to the object storage to users based on principles of least privilege using role-based access control methods from the cloud provider..

Object storage as an independent copy of your data in the cloud offers multiple benefits compared to its alternatives: reliability, scalability, security, and control, to name a few. Its quickly displacing traditional backup storage solutions by providing an air-gapped cloud storage option.

NetApp Cloud Backup is a secure and efficient backup solution that enables you to take advantage of the power of cloud object storage to meet your backup requirements. Watch the NetApp Cloud Backup group demoor sign up for a free trialto learn more.

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Object Storage Benefits for Backups - cloud.netapp.com