Winter is Coming …and It’s Going to Be Cloudy

game-of-thrones-winter-is-coming

In George RR Martin’s book series (and HBO hit series), Game of Thrones, winter is coming is the motto of House Stark meaning to be prepared and aware of possible difficulties ahead. In this context, we use it to mean only the former: be prepared. Unlike Game of Thrones, the future of IT will bring easier times. But on the other hand, just like Game of Thrones, the best has yet to come. Here are some insights and advice on how you can best prepare for this industry wide shift to the cloud.

*Disclaimer: The rest of the article may contain spoilers. Do not read if you have not finished Season 6 of Game of Thrones.

Change is Coming: Traditional Storage to the Cloud (From CapEx to OpEx)

Things can change quickly in the game of thrones.

We are currently witnessing one of the biggest and most rapid changes in the history of the storage industry. Many of the big players like EMC and NetApp that once ruled the storage kingdom are now falling and new leaders such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are emerging.

Where does Zadara Storage fit into this? For the record, we like to think of Zadara as the Jon Snow of storage; the once underdog who never left his home to the soon to be crowned fan favorite.  

Like we’ve seen far too often, sometimes a leader appears to have the best of interest when they truly don’t. In this case, Jon Snow does not know nothing. Jon Snow knows that CapEx is not the answer, and the future of IT is in OpEx. So, how do you make the switch?

 

Don’t be afraid of moving to the cloud

 

“Can a man still be brave when he’s afraid?” – Bran
“That’s the only time a man can be brave.” – Eddard Stark

Be a leader by making the transition from CapEx to OpEx at your business. Leverage the best tools at your disposal to protect your data.  Not sure you’re ready? Here are some ways to prepare and transition:

  • Migrate data in small increments
  • Consider an On-Premise private cloud as a testing ground and half-step to a full deployment
  • Then, once comfortable, transition to a hybrid cloud approach
  • Test different applications and workloads – The beauty of the OpEx as-a-service model is that you can change your configuration on-the-fly to test different scenarios

The greatest warriors never enter a battle that they haven’t already won.  With OpEx-based, Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS), you can’t get it wrong.  You can grow/shrink both your capacity and performance as needed.  There are no long-term commitments.  This is a battle you can’t lose.  It’s time to be a leader and move your business to a more reliable, flexible, and cost-effective solution. After all, winter is coming…

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