Third-party storage: Key storage supplier offers in big three clouds

Third-party cloud storage use cases

Reasons to use a cloud operating system from a third party, rather than the hyperscaler’s own software architecture, include retaining more control over the data, the need to operate on-premise and in the cloud, and making it easier to migrate between cloud providers in future.

As more enterprises move to a hybrid or multi-cloud strategy, this becomes more important. Suppliers such as NetApp promote their ONTAP software as a tool to manage local and cloud storage, and storage across cloud providers, as well as a way to make migration easier.

As tools such as ONTAP have SMB and NFS (v3 and v4.1) built in, applications should not need to be rewritten when moving to the cloud.

However, these “lift and shift” migrations are only one use case. Third-party storage software allows customers to use technologies such as deduplication and thin provisioning in the cloud and potentially save significant sums. Cloud storage is usually “thick” or fault tolerant (FT) provisioned. Buyers allocate storage capacity and IOPS up-front and have to pay for it.

Using third-party storage operating systems is also popular with enterprises that run VMware, as it brings a greater level of control to the storage side of the cloud and allows IT managers to work with a familiar set of tools.

This familiarity applies to non-virtualised environments, too. There’s a strong case that by providing IT teams with a single storage operating system for on-premise and cloud storage, they can make the most of the features on both platforms.

And, by linking existing hardware to the cloud firms can take advantage of rapid scaling, and fast provisioning.

“Hybrid multi-cloud means having flexibility and data mobility across those different environments,” says Patrick Smith, field chief technology officer for EMEA at Pure Storage, which provides its services on all three hyperscaler clouds.

“One of the things about native storage services in the cloud is that it’s native to their own clouds; they don’t run anywhere else, and so you don’t have that mobility between different cloud providers or from on-prem into the public cloud,” said Smith. “They don’t fit the blueprint that most organisations are now settling on, which is a hybrid, multi-cloud story.”

Amazon Web Services

AWS offers NetApp’s ONTAP on its Amazon FSx file server platform. The technology offers multi-protocol access (including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and NVMe-over-TCP, automated scaling and tiering. AWS claims easier application and data migration, and increased performance through file server pairs.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP is available on AWS and can be controlled via NetApp BlueXP.

The hyperscaler also offers OpenZFS, Lustre and Microsoft’s Windows File Server on FSx.

For applications that use block storage, AWS also supports Pure’s Cloud Block Store for workload portability.

IBM’s Spectrum Scale provides a high-performance, high-availability clustered file system on AWS. It provides a shared namespace across multiple instances but, according to IBM, does not require in-depth knowledge of Spectrum Scale.

Dell Technologies’ PowerScale for Multi-Cloud also supports AWS via multi-cloud data services supplier Faction. 

Microsoft Azure

Azure provides cloud-based file shares using NetApp technology, via Azure NetApp Files. This supports Windows and Linux workloads and has three performance tiers: Standard, Premium and Ultra.

Pure Storage’s Cloud Block Store is available on Azure either directly or as a VMWare-based block storage implementation.

In April 2024, IBM announced a technical preview of a Cloud-kit for IBM Spectrum Scale, which allows enterprises to deploy an IBM Storage Scale Cluster on Azure public cloud via a CLI tool.

Dell Technologies’ PowerScale for Multi-Cloud also supports Azure.

Google Cloud Platform

GCP’s third-party storage operating system options also include NetApp ONTAP and, with Sycomp, IBM’s Spectrum Scale.

Dell Technologies’ PowerScale for Multi-Cloud is also available for Google’s cloud.

NetApp positions Cloud Volumes ONTAP on Google Cloud as an easy way to “lift and shift” Linux and Windows applications to the cloud, and to consolidate file servers into Google Cloud.

Google also provides VMware certified NFS data stores via the Google Cloud VMWare Engine.