When modern organizations invest in data storage they don’t plan for today’s needs – they plan for tomorrow. In other words, wise CTOs and CIOs often look for storage solutions that will stay evergreen, able to adapt and grow with the company and its data.
But what makes a storage solution “evergreen”?
Our case study on Harbor, a UK-based backup and cloud solutions provider, is a perfect example of what it takes to build adaptable storage.
The company was facing challenges that are familiar to many of us – data growth, cost pressures, and the need to become agile. All posed a risk that the storage they buy today might not hold up next year. Here’s what they did.
Evergreen feature #1 – Rapid, limitless scale
Arguably the biggest challenge at Harbor was data growth.
Lots of companies are experiencing exponential data growth. But as a provider of backup and disaster recovery services, Harbor depends on the ability to add petabytes of new capacity almost instantly. The company was set to double in size year on year, and storage needed to keep up.
Harbor’s Zadara solution provides unlimited scale and the ability to buy per disk, per hour. Storage can grow in alignment with customer demands, the way Harbor needs it to.
Evergreen feature #2 – Adapts to changing needs
Technological agility was equally important.
Harbor CTO Nick Barron wanted to avoid investing in storage that would become outdated quickly, requiring a costly replacement. Nick also needed a flexible solution that adapted to changes at the company, like a move to new data center facilities.
With Zadara, Harbor has one highly flexible platform for block, NAS, and object storage. The service provider can make the right choice at the right time for each customer, whether that is an ultra-fast new SSD or the latest 14TB drive technology for object storage.
Evergreen feature #3 – No cost barrier to upgrade
No storage solution lasts forever. But when it comes to adopting new technologies, organizations have traditionally followed a 3-5 year refresh cycle. Upgrading also meant making a significant capital investment.
With its Zadara solution, Harbor has eliminated both the long refresh cycle and CapEx on storage. Innovations happen when Harbor needs them, not only after a technology refresh cycle.3
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Harbor now sees Zadara storage as fundamental to its success, says CTO Nick.
“The scalability and flexibility of the Zadara platform enables us to take on advances in technology. This agile platform means we can push innovation and commercial savings on to our customers. We have one platform that can do anything we conceivably need – not just tied in to block or object, for example – we can provision exactly what’s needed.”
If you want all the details of this evergreen storage solution, click below.
