Given the sunk costs organizations already have in IT assets, it’s perhaps unsurprising that much innovation is occurring around blending existing infrastructure with cloud aspects. Latest to jump into the fray is TwinStrata who have just announced a new release of its CloudArray storage gateway which will enable organizations to deploy cloud SANs which combine public and private cloud storage providers along with their existing storage infrastructure.

CloudArray claims to be the only product that enables existing organizations to eek out value from their existing storage but to do so in combination with public and private storage in a multi-tenant, multi-site model. The benefit that cloud SANs have over traditional ones is that they enable the dynamic activation of both virtual and physical arrays – irrespective of physical location.

It’s a play that makes sense, with storage requirements increasing exponentially, moving to cloud storage is a natural step, but given the dual barriers over ROI from existing spend and data location – a hybrid approach between physical, on-prem storage and the cloud makes sense. Of course a play such as this is merely an interim measure – I see existing resistance to the cloud reducing within organizations in the years ahead, that coupled with the end-of-lifing of much on-premises storage kit will see a natural and gradual progression from on-prem to cloud. However in enabling the sliding wedge to begin the move away from on-prem, CloudArray is performing a valuable role.

TwinStrata’s eases the move via its “Zero Friction” deployment and three-step configuration which they’re claiming enables global access to Cloud SANs within minutes. Built in centralized capacity management and disaster recovery reduce concerns about remote sites running out of storage and the need to administer backup and data protection operations across sites.

There are a lot of short to medium term opportunities to be had enabling an orderly move to the cloud – while CloudArray doesn’t tick the purists box as a pure cloud product – it’s a natural reaction to a short term requirement.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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