The role that cloud plays in enabling greater scalability and flexibility for enterprises is undeniable. However, many of these enterprises have recognized that getting the most value from their cloud services depends on storing cloud data the right way. They need data to move freely across the different environments that make up their hybrid multicloud architecture. They also need their storage to be cost-efficient and reliable. And to top things off, they need to be able to maintain control over their data and ensure its integrity.
You may not be able to do any of these things if you rely on cloud-native storage solutions. Putting full datasets inside the cloud can limit the effectiveness of your hybrid multicloud strategy, for the simple reason that data won’t be able to move as easily as it should between different clouds and on-premises environments. You may find yourself having to pay high egress fees just to move your own data out of a particular cloud. You might also decide to leave your data in that cloud rather than pay the egress fees, thus leading to vendor lock-in.
You’ll also have no control over where the cloud provider hosts your data geographically. This can lead to high latency and performance issues, as data may have to travel long distances to get from cloud storage to its intended destination. It may also create security and compliance risks, as you can’t expect the cloud provider to treat your data privacy and sovereignty requirements with the same priority that you would.
Cloud adjacent storage offers a better way
Fortunately, businesses that want to leverage cloud services while also optimizing cost-efficiency, control and performance have another option: cloud adjacent storage. To put it simply, cloud adjacent storage means putting your data near the cloud, but not in the cloud. This allows you to use cloud services on your own terms, minimizing costs and the potential for vendor lock-in.
Specifically, your cloud services from different providers can pull in temporary copies of data as needed via low-latency interconnection; your authoritative datasets remain in your own storage environment outside the cloud. This allows you to maintain control over your data, thus helping you keep your costs predictable, your performance high, and your security and compliance risks low.
Platform Equinix® is the ideal place for enterprises to do cloud adjacent storage. Customers can deploy their storage solutions in Equinix IBX® colocation data centers in 70 global metros spread across six continents. Many of these data centers are home to low-latency on-ramps to major cloud providers. In fact, more than 40% of all cloud on-ramps reside at Equinix, making us the global market leader.
Our global reach and unmatched cloud connectivity is further supported by Equinix Fabric®, our virtual networking solution. From any market that offers Equinix Fabric availability—of which there are 58 and counting—you can gain remote access to more than 200 cloud on-ramps located around the globe. In many cases, you can create a low-latency connection to the cloud of your choice in the location of your choice, without being physically colocated with that provider.
Customers looking to do cloud adjacent storage at Equinix can also benefit from Equinix Metal®, our bare metal storage solution. With Equinix Metal, you can stand up new storage or compute capacity on demand, anywhere you need to get close to your cloud providers.
In addition to Equinix digital services like Equinix Metal and Equinix Fabric, customers can access services from our robust digital ecosystem. Among the thousands of partners that make up our ecosystem are many of the leading storage service providers in the world today, including NetApp and Pure Storage. If you have a preferred storage vendor, their solutions are likely available on Equinix Metal. Accessing services from these providers alongside Equinix colocation and digital infrastructure services can give our customers an end-to-end solution that meets all their cloud adjacent storage needs.
Equinix helps Wasabi simplify cloud storage
As one of the fastest-growing cloud object storage companies in the world, Wasabi Technologies shares our goal of making cloud storage simpler and more cost-effective to actively address many of the existing concerns of storing data in the cloud. Wasabi offers “hot” cloud storage with no fees for egress or API calls, helping customers avoid vendor lock-in while being able to put their data to use exactly when and how they need to. The company uses Equinix colocation and digital infrastructure services to help achieve this.
Wasabi’s customers rely on their services to support a variety of use cases:
- Universities use Wasabi storage to handle massive volumes of research data.
- Media and entertainment companies rely on Wasabi storage to enable post-production editing capabilities.
- Enterprises across industry verticals use Wasabi storage to enable simple, reliable disaster recovery and data backup services.
Regardless of the exact use case they’re pursuing, Wasabi customers benefit from the company’s sole focus on cloud storage that makes its service more predictable, secure and affordable. To achieve this, Wasabi needs access to massive amounts of power and compute capacity on demand. On Platform Equinix, the company was able to find this power and capacity in many of the global markets it wanted to operate in.
Having Equinix allows us to talk more openly with our customers about our intended growth plans and the fact that we’re leveraging Equinix facilities globally to be able to expand rapidly.”- Marty Falaro, EVP and COO, Wasabi Technologies
Many customers are simultaneously using Wasabi for storage and Equinix Metal for compute. Due to the fact that many of Wasabi’s worldwide storage regions are colocated with Equinix Metal, these customers are able to achieve reliably low latency and high performance to support data-hungry cloud applications with sovereignty.
In addition, Wasabi uses Equinix Fabric to interconnect all 13 of its data centers across the globe. This means that even the storage regions that aren’t colocated can still be accessed remotely from Platform Equinix. This ensures that customers using Wasabi and Equinix Metal together never have to worry about giving up control or incurring data egress fees when moving their cloud data between their compute and storage environments.
Watch the video featuring Marty Falaro from Wasabi to learn more about how Equinix is helping the company expand rapidly and open new doors with customers. Also, learn more about how you can deploy Wasabi on Equinix Metal.
To learn more about how Equinix and its partners are enabling a simpler, more cost-effective approach to storage in the hybrid multicloud era, visit us today.
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