It’s almost the year 2017. A time where 20 years ago we envisioned living like the Jetsons, with flying cars, robot servants, and teleportation. We were close. Instead we have self driving cars, and telepresence robots that allow us to “Beam” into remote offices and places.
What we didn’t account for is the massive scale of data and what to do with it.
Cloud Data Storage
Sure, you can store your data on-prem, but the maintenance of getting servers up and running requires your organization to have someone to manage the physical environment and many other variables. But as companies are becoming more cognizant of costs and efficiency, the cloud has become a prime place to store data. The conversation has transitioned from if you are going to store data in the cloud, to when.
At Re: Invent last week, jaws were on the floor as AWS announced Snowmobile, a tractor trailer that will quite literally haul your exabytes of data to a remote location and then offload it into the cloud. We thought AWS was kidding-- they weren't. The massive truck is outfitted to be waterproof, temperature controlled, and even has a dedicated security guards and vehicle escort. There has never been a way to move from physical to digital like this. Amazon certainly made a statement.
With cloud providers such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, companies can easily store their big data in the cloud. These three mega companies have more data than anyone in the world, meaning they have invested so much money creating a scalable and performant way to store data. They have already figured out the formula and made the initial investment, and they continue to grow every day. Conference attendance alone has grown dramatically from 2015 to 2016. Last year's AWS conference gathered 20,000 attendees. This year? 32,000. Deutsche Bank predicts Amazon Web Services will boast a $160 billion valuation by 2017. The future looks bright for cloud providers, and the simplicity of the user experience lends itself to massive growth.
Spinning up servers on these platforms is super simple and quick. With AWS and Microsoft, all you need is your account information. With Google, it’s even easier. You can use your gmail, youtube, or create an account in seconds. With no technical background, I was able to provision servers across these platforms in less than 10 minutes.
Another huge benefit to cloud storage, is that cloud providers have marketplaces where you can add additional services to your cloud subscription. You want a tool to visualize your big data sitting in AWS? No problem. Spin up a Zoomdata server instantly from the marketplace, which is essentially like an app store. And there are no up-front costs, just pay for what you use.
Seeing is believing: try Zoomdata on AWS, GCP, and Azure now.
