We also covered the rise of hybrid- and multicloud approaches, which are often the optimal way of working for organisations that need to meet unpredictable demand spikes by bursting to off-site processing and storage.
The flipside of this has been the emergence of on-site hardware – including storage – provided by the big three cloud players as way to smooth the junction between the datacentre and the cloud.
Finally, we looked at the perennial questions for cloud storage: what are the best workloads to move to the cloud, and how do we keep cloud storage costs under control?
Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 cloud storage stories of 2020:
1. IT Priorities 2020: Covid-19 consolidates storage push to cloud
The emphasis on home and remote working has been felt in storage and backup, as in all areas of IT, with continued evolution towards the cloud and as-a-service storage and backup.
2. Big storage meets cloud in the datacentre ‘as-a-service’ revolution
Cloud is mainstream but the datacentre is here to stay. This has resulted in a trend towards as-a-service in the datacentre where big storage array makers and the cloud giants meet.
3. Do you use cloud storage for these use cases yet?
We look at the use cases most suited to a quick transition to the cloud: backup, archiving, disaster recovery, file storage and cloud bursting – cloud storage’s low-hanging fruit.
4. Cloud storage costs: How to get cloud storage bills under control
Many organisations look to the cloud to cut storage budgets, but the potential costs are many and varied. So what are the key ways to cut cloud storage costs?
5. Cloud storage 101: File, block and object storage in the cloud
We run the rule over file, block and object storage from the big three public cloud providers: AWS, Azure and GCP. We look at what’s on offer and the use cases they are aimed at.
6. Cloud storage on-site hardware: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
We look at the big three cloud vendors’ on-site offerings: AWS’s Outposts, Gateway and Snow hardware, Azure’s Stack and Arc appliances, and Google Cloud’s software-defined Anthos.
7. Cloud storage 101: NAS file storage on AWS, Azure and GCP
We look at NAS file storage options in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. All three offer native-based and NetApp-based file storage, with Azure adding single namespace cache services.
8. Storj app builds QNAP NAS into its Uber-like cloud storage network
QNAP NAS users can use the Storj app to configure spare capacity as part of the Tardigrade S3 cloud, which offers storage at half the cost of the main providers.
9. Multicloud storage 101: Pros, cons, pitfalls and strategies
Not putting all your eggs in one basket can be helpful to an enterprise’s resilience strategy. We look at multicloud storage and the benefits and pitfalls it brings.
10. Cloud flash storage: SSD options from AWS, Azure and GCP
We look at the flash storage options available from the big three cloud providers – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform – that can help narrow the gap between on-site and cloud workloads.
