Data growth is accelerating exponentially, challenging IT organizations year over year. As enterprises grapple with managing their storage capacity, they are left with a common series of questions to ask themselves: “Do I increase my storage capacity or delete data to avoid upgrading hardware?” “If I delete data, how much should I delete and what can I afford to get rid of?” This often leads to decision paralysis and issues with managing data productively.  An on-premises storage model forces all data—backups, archives, and the steady stream of newly created data—to fight for the same expensive real estate on disk.  

For organizations that are unable to expand their budget and are committed to their current hardware footprint for the foreseeable future, there is a simple solution that can proactively alleviate storage complexity. It’s called hybrid cloud tiering, and it allows you to cost-effectively store less frequently accessed data—or data that might need to be retained for compliance purposes—with ease and efficiency. With hybrid-cloud tiering, you can offload data from expensive, on-premises storage hardware to a cloud storage destination, keeping it accessible long-term. It also allows flexible control in your choice of vendors when it comes to data storage across on-prem hardware, effectively relieving pressure on premises-based storage capacity in the process.  

A hybrid-cloud match made to maximize cost-efficiency  

The hybrid cloud tiering solution from Wasabi and partner Komprise provides customers with the ability to move infrequently accessed data from network-attached storage (NAS) to the cloud and free up valuable primary storage on-prem. Using Transparent Move Technology (TMT)™, Komprise can orchestrate data movement between on-premises and cloud environments. Crucially, your files remain visible to the user locally as they were despite the data residing elsewhere. TMT tiers data via symbolic links, avoiding disruptions and maintaining seamless access without getting in the way of the data’s path.  

Using a dynamic analysis across your unstructured data sources, Komprise’s unique “data donut” feature can put a dollar amount on every storage instance. The donut lets users see just how much it costs to store data on a per-platform basis, be it on-prem or in the cloud. This tool, coupled with the platform’s tiering policy creator, can help you make informed decisions about how and where to tier your data.  

Looking ahead to a more predictable road 

Predicting data storage footprint and hardware costs is difficult but predicting cloud access and usage fees —such as charges for egress and API calls—can be even harder to estimate. For example, recovering data due to a sudden gap in backup or a service outage can produce costly unbudgeted egress fees.  

That’s where Wasabi’s predictable pricing enables a more accessible cloud storage environment. Wasabi doesn’t charge API fees or data egress charges. It doesn’t matter how long data has been sitting untouched or how large the file is. That data is always available at a moment’s notice without restrictions to access it. Wasabi offers highly secure, low-latency storage that treats all data as warm—meaning no tiers, no fees, and fast, no-hassle access that other archival storage options like LTO tape and cold cloud storage employ. It also means you can more accurately predict storage costs month to month since there are no irregular access or egress fees associated with your storage.  

Navigating your TCO and ROI for data storage is instantly easier with Wasabi, and, when combined with Komprise’s suite of features, our predictable pricing makes calculating cloud tiering costs even easier.  

Wasabi and Komprise provide a flexible, reliable, and affordable data management solution that lets you create a tiered storage environment that’s tailored to your needs (and your budget). As independent research has shown, more than half (56%) of organizations experience delays or fees for accessing data. In an age where budgets are already strapped tight, moving the right data to the right place at the right time can be the difference between being under budget and going over budget.  

With Komprise and Wasabi, the question is no longer ‘What can I afford to delete?’—it’s ‘How can I maximize these savings to drive my organization forward?’