Storage VAR: Most of a company's data is 'crap'
VAR boss NAS claims object storage is the way forward
Businesses are spending fortunes on extra storage for their data, but 80 per cent of it is "crap", according to a reseller boss, who suggests object storage is the way forward.
Speaking to CRN, Barry Griffiths, owner of Network Attached Storage (NAS) said archive storage – which is essentially big chunks of data – does not match up to the newer alternative, object storage.
The technology, provided by storage vendors such as NAS partner Cloudian, allows businesses to search through their data using analytics and big data, filtering out the duplicates, triplicates, MP3s and "nonsense that shouldn't be there".
Griffiths urged that people should know about alternative solutions before forking out money on potentially unnecessary storage space.
“People need to be aware of the object storage technology that is available from companies like Cloudian, so they can then look at a NetApp or EMC or Isilon installation and say 'in this age of austerity do I really need to buy another shelf of storage'?" he said.
“Everyone knows, and has known since Adam was a boy, that 80 per cent of data is crap. No one accesses it, so why would I want rubbish data on my primary storage?”
Paul Turner, chief marketing officer at the storage vendor – which received $25m in funding back in June – reckons that Cloudian will spark the next big shift in the storage market.
“It takes a while to build a good-quality storage product. Flash storage has totally disrupted the market in the last three years, and built totally new business. The next wave of storage change is coming from Cloudian,” he said.
Griffiths agrees, proposing that object storage could even be the answer for enterprises that are nervous about the looming "right to be forgotten" legislation.
He said that rather than pouring overflowing data into offline archives, only to then have to dig it all back up when required, system managers can use object storage to better organise data for ease of access.
“Now, someone has the right to request every bit of data there is about them. If that person makes that statement – and there are those anally retentive people out there who will – and you can’t find it, they can sue you,” Griffiths added.
“The right to be forgotten can really only be adhered to properly with object storage. It can even save money – if someone has to come in and do some kind of search on the data, they could be there six months if they can’t find the data, charging you a fortune.
"Whereas if you’ve got something that can easily find it; stick it sideways into a separate file, they can just go there to find everything they need.”