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Cloud Vs. Tape: How Cloud Storage is Advancing Data Management

July 8, 2024
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In today's data-driven world, companies across all industries pay great attention to the storage and protection of their data. Among the various storage solutions, cloud storage is rapidly gaining momentum, gradually overtaking the widely used Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology. 

However, many businesses remain unaware of the significant benefits of cloud storage. This article explores why cloud storage should be the preferred choice over LTO due to its superior security, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use. By leveraging the advantages of cloud, anyone can future-proof their data management strategy. Let’s get into it. 

1. Superior Security 

LTO storage presents several security downsides. The complex physical handling required of LTO can lead to accidental damage, loss, or theft of data. Manual data integrity checks, which are prone to human error further complicate its use. These challenges make LTO suboptimal in today’s data-driven world. 

In contrast, cloud storage offers superior security with features like automatic encryption and fine-grained access control via AWS Identity and IAM policies. Additionally, with Impossible Cloud, data is encrypted and replicated across multiple geographically dispersed locations, mitigating single-point-of-failure risks that are inherent to LTO. On top of that, data protection and integrity is assured through advanced security features users can leverage with cloud storage, such as multi-factor authentication and programmable IAM protocols. 

2. Cost-effectiveness 

Manual handling of LTO tapes not only imposes risks, but it is also simply more expensive! LTO systems require significant upfront costs for hardware and infrastructure, not to mention ongoing maintenance and substantial personnel needs. Physical storage space also incurs costs for real estate, security, and environmental controls. Plus, redundancy and disaster recovery with LTO tapes increases costs even further. 

In contrast, cloud storage offers economic viability with a pay-as-you-go model, eliminating large initial investments and allowing businesses to pay only for what they actually use. This reduces maintenance costs and eliminates expenses for manual labeling, consistency checks, and transportation. Overall, cloud storage is 62-69% cheaper, providing fast, global access and integrated services, making it ideal for long-term data storage and archiving solutions.

3. Ease of use

LTO data storage demands significant manual effort at every step: labeling, regular consistency checking, tape transporting, and more. When performed manually, all of these operations are exceptionally effort- and time-consuming. 

In contrast, S3 storage simplifies these processes with automated versioning, data integrity checks, and data replication across regions, reducing active backup time to just minutes for setup. Overall, cloud storage saves 65-71% of time and effort, making it a more efficient and user-friendly option. Cloud storage provides efficient and optimal backup solutions for businesses.

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Conclusion

To sum it all up, cloud storage is becoming the preferred option for the growing number of companies since it offers superior security, cost-effectiveness, and significant time savings over traditional methods like LTO. It eliminates substantial manual effort through automation and provides features like automatic data encryption and fine-grained access control.

Modern companies are encouraged to adopt cloud storage to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve data management. Cloud storage for businesses is reliable, secure, and offers scalable solutions that integrate easily into existing systems.

Interested in learning more? Schedule a consultation today with our team to assess the Tape to Cloud opportunity in your business.

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