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5 Hidden Costs of Cloud Backup

  • 5 Hidden Costs of Cloud Backup-

    Getting Data Into and Out of the Cloud

    Hidden Cost No. 4: Getting Data Into and Out of the Cloud

    Getting your data into and out of the cloud has both hard costs and soft costs beyond network egress fees. The impact of those costs depends on which option you use to move your data – a WAN connection or physical seeding. The most obvious method to move data to and from the cloud is to send it over a WAN connection. However, this may not be ideal for moving large amounts of data because, even with a high-speed Internet connection, transferring multiple TBs of data can take a substantial amount of time.

    Physical seeding is an alternative method to get an initial set of data into the cloud without having to wait days or weeks to transfer many TBs. Physical seeding uses physical disks and overnight shipping to quickly create an initial dataset in the cloud. Media is sent to the cloud provider to “seed” the initial full set of data and avoid the WAN challenge.

    Physical seeding can greatly speed up the cloud backup initialization process, reducing setup time from weeks to a single day, even for hundreds of TBs. However, not all vendors offer a seeding option and almost all charge a nominal fee for it.

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5 Hidden Costs of Cloud Backup

  • 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
  • 5 Hidden Costs of Cloud Backup-5

    Getting Data Into and Out of the Cloud

    Hidden Cost No. 4: Getting Data Into and Out of the Cloud

    Getting your data into and out of the cloud has both hard costs and soft costs beyond network egress fees. The impact of those costs depends on which option you use to move your data – a WAN connection or physical seeding. The most obvious method to move data to and from the cloud is to send it over a WAN connection. However, this may not be ideal for moving large amounts of data because, even with a high-speed Internet connection, transferring multiple TBs of data can take a substantial amount of time.

    Physical seeding is an alternative method to get an initial set of data into the cloud without having to wait days or weeks to transfer many TBs. Physical seeding uses physical disks and overnight shipping to quickly create an initial dataset in the cloud. Media is sent to the cloud provider to “seed” the initial full set of data and avoid the WAN challenge.

    Physical seeding can greatly speed up the cloud backup initialization process, reducing setup time from weeks to a single day, even for hundreds of TBs. However, not all vendors offer a seeding option and almost all charge a nominal fee for it.

Backup and disaster recovery are typically cited among the top use cases for cloud computing. Companies are increasingly realizing that cloud-based backup is more efficient, more reliable, easier to use and less error prone than traditional methods such as tape or other rotational media, not to mention it enables extremely effective disaster recovery. In 2015, we saw a major upswing in cloud adoption for storing backup copies. In 2016, expect to see cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) options become the norm for new backup deployments at organizations of all sizes.

Most companies can easily lower OPEX and CAPEX with cloud backup. But not all cloud backup options are the same, and a true cost comparison entails evaluating more than just each offering’s top line cost per GB. In this slideshow, cloud-recovery leader Unitrends details five “hidden” charges that companies must consider when researching the best and most cost-effective cloud backup solution for their business.