Hi everyone,

At this week’s “Designing Storage Architectures” meeting at the Library of Congress, there was a good discussion on using cloud storage. The issue was raised that in considering using cloud storage, an organization should consider how difficult or easy it is to get your data out. How easy is it to migrate to another system? What’s the cost to download your data? It should be assumed that you’ll want to get your data out at some point, whether because you are moving to another system or the cloud provider decides to stop offering the service (or goes out of business). Examples: In August, CrashPlan announced it was ending its home cloud storage, giving customers 60 days to get their data out or move to their business service: https://blog.code42.com/data-protection-needs-diverge/   In 2014, the cloud provider Nirvanix went out of business, giving its customers two weeks to get their data out. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2173255/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-cloud-s-worst-case-scenario-what-to-do-if-your-provider-goes-belly-up.html

It's not likely that Amazon will cease its cloud storage offerings, but what if they decide to no longer offer Glacier because they want to allocate more funds to another area in their business? Or they raise the cost so it’s no longer sustainable for you to keep your data there? It’s a good idea to keep an exit strategy in your back pocket, regardless of which third party provider you use.

Disclosure: Digital Bedrock is a managed digital preservation service.

Best,

Linda

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Linda Tadic

Founder and CEO

Digital Bedrock

PO Box 86311

Los Angeles, CA 90086-0311

Email: [log in to unmask]

tel. (888) 938-7386 x700

Hi All,

This is a great question. We’re testing the use of Glacier in addition to a local networked attached storage system for our digital photojournalism archive. I’m wondering how this type of cloud storage compares with a LOCKSS system, for example.

Edward

w (573) 882-8049 | m (573) 818-5970