Without question, losing data is catastrophic. As backup footprints continue to grow, the public cloud is becoming a cost-effective target for backup copies. Hereโs how HPE data protection solutions play a key role when it comes to Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure Stack.
When it comes to leveraging the cloud in specific ways to support cost-effective IT modernization, long-term data retention and disaster recovery represent two of the most frequent uses for cloud storage today. According to a recent ESG analyst survey,* 42% of enterprises use cloud for backup and archive while 40% use cloud for disaster recovery. This is in large part due to the operational agility, efficiency, and appealing cost structure that a secure offsite data repository provides in the way of:
- Long-term data retention: Many IT organizations cannot delete backups in case future restores are needed or for compliance with legal requirements. This drives the need to retain vast datasets for years or decades, potentially raising cost and complexity.
- Disaster recovery: Investing in and managing an owned off-site location that prevents the business from coming to a halt in the event of a site outage, ransomware threat or natural disaster is cost-prohibitive for many businesses. Yet, high costs associated with the transfer of large amounts of data to the cloud remains a barrier.
Low-cost, high-capacity object storage in public, private or hybrid cloud is an ideal storage option for long-term data retention and disaster recovery in the face of explosive data growth, strict retention policies, and a pressure to reduce costs. So how do HPE data protection solutions help?
HPE StoreOnce and HPE Cloud Bank Storage for Microsoft Azure
HPE StoreOnce provides a backup appliance target that delivers fast backups and restores with efficient deduplication and enables copying backup stores to an object storage in the cloud with HPE Cloud Bank Storage, now generally available. HPE StoreOnce integrates with key backup and recovery software such as Veritas NetBackup or Micro Focus Data Protector to provide higher levels of efficiency in data protection tasks. The combination of HPE StoreOnce deduplication and cloud storage is ideal for the following use cases:
- Long-term retention and archive of backups
- Offsite copies of backups for disaster recovery
- Detached HPE Cloud Bank stores for very long-term backup data retention
- Less disk-based hardware would be required because the data would be deduplicated in the private cloud use case
In private cloud uses cases, less disk-based hardware would be required because the data would be deduplicated.
A key consideration when using public cloud object storage is the cost of uploading and downloading data. Deduplicating the data before writing to cloud storage significantly reduces the amount of data uploaded. As a result, retrieving this non-redundant data requires less download usage. Through deduplication, HPE Cloud Bank reduces the cost of storing the data in the cloud, as well as the cost of writing and accessing the cloud-stored backup data.
With support for multiple on-premises and cloud-based object storage targets such as Microsoftยฎ Azure storage, HPE Cloud Bank Storage can be deployed without having to change backup processes. This can clearly reduce the learning curve associated with a new technology. It also adds the protection of offsite backup data copies without having to invest in offsite facilities. Above all, it enables cloud-based disaster recovery without the high costs associated with the transfer of large amounts of data to the cloud.
More ways to learn more
Read:
- Reference architecture: HPE Reference Configuration for HPE Cloud Bank Storage with Microsoft Azure
- Solution brief: Protect Your Data Wherever It Resides with HPE Data Protection Solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack and Microsoft Azure
Catch the September 20th webinar on Data Protection Solutions for Azure Stack:
As data volumes increase, you look for ways to manage your backup footprints efficiently and cost effectively within your data centers. Some organizations are moving to use public cloud services to take advantage of affordable, flexible data storage. But for many reasons, you may want to keep data onsite. HPE Cloud Bank Storage lowers long-term data retention costs by leveraging cloud-based or on-premises object storage. Come and learn how HPE data protection solutions can protect your data wherever it residesโfrom an on-premises private cloud such as Microsoft Azure Stack to public cloud such as Microsoft Azure. Registration/Replay
And check out a few more articles on the topic:
- Microsoft Azure Stack vs. OpenStack for building your on-prem solution
- Decision guide: Public cloud versus on-prem storage
- Cloud or on-premises? For Dropbox, the answer is yes
- Want to know the future of technology? Sign up for weekly insights and resources
*Source: The Importance of Flash Storage in a Hybrid IT World, ESG, May 2017
Meet Around the Storage Block blogger Bharath Ram Ramanathan, Senior Technical Marketing 
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