Introducing Azure Blob Support: Tier to More Clouds with StorageGRID

Once again, NetApp® StorageGRID® is enabling more hybrid multicloud capabilities for its customers. Today, with the announcement of StorageGRID 11.3 software, customers have more validated cloud choices with the addition of Microsoft Azure and Azure Blob Storage support, so they can take advantage of a new low-cost storage tier in the cloud. The Azure Archive Storage tier is fully supported by the latest release of StorageGRID, reflecting more collaborations between NetApp and Microsoft to further enable the new class of hybrid cloud data services.

As object storage becomes a primary storage platform for performant object workloads, on-premises space is often a limited resource. You need to keep frequently accessed data on the premises, but you want to move cooler data that is rarely accessed to a less-performant tier to save space and money. However, it can be complicated to know when and what data to move.

Automatic data tiering with StorageGRID

With the Cloud Storage Pool feature of StorageGRID, you can automate tiering to public clouds for increased flexibility and cost savings for your data storage. Cloud Storage Pools, combined with the StorageGRID industry-leading data placement policy engine (ILM policies), enable your business to automatically and intelligently move only the data that needs to move to one or more clouds.

You can define your own data lifecycle policies to optimize your data for performance or storage efficiency. The policies that control Cloud Storage Pools can be based on buckets, applications, or tenants or at the individual object level (based on metadata key and/or value pairs). You set the policies, based on your business and data needs, and adjust them as the demands of your data and business grow.

StorageGRID ensures that your data is in the right tier in the right data center in the right cloud at the right time, so you can get back to the business. As a software-defined object storage solution, StorageGRID gives you an open, optimized, and scalable architecture to manage your data at scale.

To see just how simple it is to set up your Azure Blob Storage tier, watch this demonstration.

But StorageGRID 11.3 isn't just for data tiering. This software update also gives you performance enhancements across your existing deployments, enhanced S3 support, and more.

Today NetApp also announced a number of purpose-built appliances to deliver more speed, scale, and simplicity to your object environment. To see all the ways in which StorageGRID can benefit your environment, visit the StorageGRID page on NetApp.com to access more resources for your specific use cases.