There is a lot of talk these days in the various web hosting social circles about cloud-based products and services.  One big name that seems to be gaining a lot of traction in this area is The Planet, so I could think of no greater company to contact to discuss the issue.

On today’s show we have The Planet’s General Manager of Storage and Data Protection, Rob Walters, to discuss cloud storage.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 188!
Running Time: 8 minutes | File Size: 3.60 MB

Here are some of the topics we cover in today’s interview:

• What is and what are the benefits of cloud storage?
• How is The Planet’s cloud storage business different?
• Why is creating the “shortest path” between clients and servers important?

There are five things customers should evaluate when choosing a cloud platform.

• Performance – It is important that you match the platform with the performance needs for your application.  Many cloud storage platforms only provide 2-3 Mb/sec, which is fine for most backup and archiving use cases, but is likely not sufficient for production data.  It is also important to run multiple tests and measure the variability between tests, as cloud storage platform performance can be inconsistent.
• Ease of integration – The ease of user access is critical to product adoption in web applications.  Most cloud storage products provide proprietary APIs for integration.  This means you will need to specifically develop for that cloud storage platform.  This makes integration more difficult and increases switching costs.  Check if the platform offers any standards-based integration software that allows access via CIFS, NFS, FTP or HTTP.
• Where you want your data – Most cloud products do not offer specific locations for data to reside.  In fact, these companies offer the data “in the cloud” as if “the cloud” were a location rather than an access medium.  While in many cases the physical location of data is unimportant, there are occasions when being able to select a location is beneficial.  For instance, if you are building a disaster recovery plan; working to reduce download times for a specific customer; or attempting to pass strict security audits, then where data resides is critical.
• Flexibility – One of the most appealing features of cloud storage is the flexibility of its on-demand design, which manifests itself in two primary traits: scalability and elasticity.  Most cloud storage products should free you from the task of capacity planning, hardware budgeting and upgrading.  Capacity is available on-demand, as required.  Watch out for commitments for minimum usage levels as these can negate this inherent benefit .  Cloud storage products should provide elasticity, with capacity that grows as your business requires, and scales back as soon as this excess capacity is no longer needed.
• Usage-based billing – Paying only for what you use is certainly appealing.  The primary aspects on which to judge the pricing of a cloud storage product should simply be: how much storage capacity you used and how much bandwidth was used to access your data.  Keep a sharp eye out for “hidden” fees, because in many use cases they can add up quickly to be as much or more than the primary elements of your bill.  “Hidden” fees to watch out for include: connect fees, account maintenance charges, and “puts” and “gets” charges.  Cloud platforms should offer simple and predictable monthly bills.

More Interesting Links from The Planet:

• The Planet’s Ever So Excellent Blog
• The Planet Provides Highest Performing Cloud Storage
• The Planet’s Storage Cloud Infrastructure Explained

For the second show in a row, we have the chance to talk with one of the big names in the web hosting game, so I hope you tune in to hear more about cloud storage and how The Planet is serving it up to you.  If you would like to come onto the show to talk to the entire hosting industry about what you do, how you host or anything else be sure to drop me a line at mitch@mitchkeeler.com.