20 The massive growth of the streaming services market has changed the game. Streaming video providers can’t afford to entrust their content storage to a single content delivery network (CDN) any longer; they need to diversify and federate multiple CDN services over their own central storage infrastructure. The uptick in demand has had an impact on how streaming services approach storage and backup. It’s time to rethink what the right storage solution is and why it’s key to your backup and disaster recovery strategy. Storage and the rise of hybrid cloud The hybrid cloud approach makes a lot of sense for media companies that want to maintain their primary data storage on-premises for reasons including performance, security and compliance. At the same time, the public cloud offers compelling services that can enhance this on-premises data. By using on-premises and public cloud storage, companies enable hybrid cloud use cases that are changing the way data management and data protection are dealt with. Hybrid cloud architectures help companies take advantage of cloud archive services to maintain full copies of their on-premises data for disaster recovery, protect against ransomware attacks, take advantage of cloud service bursting and more. By using hybrid cloud services, companies retain greater control over their private data. A company can store sensitive data on a private cloud or local data center and at the same time make use of the robust computational resources of a managed public cloud. A hybrid cloud relies on a single plane of management, unlike a multi-cloud strategy that forces admins to manage each cloud environment separately. The effect of remote work If companies lack strong backup and recovery infrastructure, they run the risk of losing their most valuable assets – their data. Data loss affects businesses directly when assets can no longer be used – or indirectly via loss of customer confidence and regulatory fines and penalties. The work-from-home shift also affected the way companies do storage and backup. If the majority of a workforce is remote now, how do you back up laptops? How do you back up phones? Previously, employees would go to an office and their laptop and other devices would get backed up there — but now that’s not the case. And with remote work in place for the long haul for many companies, backup methods must change. Information is at a much higher risk of being lost or stolen due to the remote work model. If an employee is at home, for instance, and they lose a file on their computer — but they’re used to having their computer backed up by the company — how do they restart that backup? If they have to go through IT, that seemingly simple act can take weeks. Security and data protection Some storage solutions (like Scality) now have built-in authentication — our storage and backup is designed with security and data protection in mind. Unlike other storage solutions, object storage gives you your own keys as well as your own passwords, and you only see what you should see. It’s very well protected and purposefully siloed so that employees can do what the company wants them to be able to do, but they only have the minimum access they need. So, object storage can help organizations have fine-grained authentication and security, more so than a typical file storage solution. At the same time, object storage solutions like Scality provide your employees with the kind of self-service backup and recovery they need in a remote world where speed is of the essence and efficiency is front and center. Object storage for the win It makes sense, in light of a variety of business factors and the effect of the pandemic, that the hybrid storage approach would become popular. Media companies (all companies, actually) naturally want to keep certain kinds of data close to the vest for security and/or compliance reasons. Performance is another consideration when it comes to where data should be stored. Companies have more opportunities than before when it comes to managing backup and recovery. More consumers are streaming, and more employees are working from home; companies need the ability to help employees to protect their own data as well as corporate data. With both speed and efficiency in its favor, object storage makes this possible. The market offers multiple options for storage and cloud configurations. Use the information noted above to help in the decision-making process — this decision will impact the performance, compliance and security needs of your company. To learn more about how Scality is helping media companies, check out our MediaHub and Bloomberg case studies.
