Hybrid File Tiering addresses top CIO priorities of risk control and cost optimization

This article describes how you can leverage Komprise Intelligent Tiering for Azure with any on-premises file storage platform and Azure Blob Storage to reduce your cost by 70% and shrink your ransomware attack surface. 

Note: This article has been co-authored by Komprise and Microsoft.

Unstructured data plays a big role in today's  IT budgets and risk factors

Unstructured data, which is any data that does not fit neatly into a database or tabular format, has been growing exponentially and is now projected by analysts to be over 80% of business information. Unstructured data is commonly referred to as file data, which is the terminology used for the rest of this article. File data has caught some IT leaders by surprise because it is now consuming a significant portion of IT budgets with no sign of slowing down. File data is expensive to manage and retain because it is typically stored and protected by replication to an identical storage platform which can be very expensive at scale. We will now review how you can easily identify hot and cold data and transparently tier cold files to Azure to cut costs and shrink ransomware exposure with Komprise.

Why file data is factoring into CIO priorities

CIOs are prioritizing cost optimization, risk management and revenue improvement as key priorities for their data. 56% chose cost optimization as their top priority according to the 2024 Komprise State of Unstructured Data Management survey.

This is because file data is often retained for decades, its growth rate is in double-digits, and it can easily be petabytes of data. Keeping a primary copy, a backup copy and a DR copy means three or more copies of the large volume of file data which becomes prohibitively expensive. 

On the other hand, file data has largely been untapped in terms of value, but businesses are now realizing the importance of file data to train and fine tune AI models.

Smart solutions are required to balance these competing requirements.

Why file data is vulnerable to ransomware attacks

File data is arguably the most difficult data to protect against ransomware attacks because it is open to many different users, groups and applications.  This increases risk because a single user's or group's mistake can lead to a ransomware infection. If the file is shared and accessed again, the infection can quickly spread across the network undetected. As ransomware lurks, the risk increases. For these reasons, you cannot ignore file data when creating a ransomware defense strategy. 

How to leverage Azure to cut the cost and inherent risk of file data retention

You can cut costs and shrink the ransomware attack surface of file data using Azure even when you still require on-premises access to your files. 

The key is reducing the amount of file data that is actively accessed and thus exposed to ransomware attacks. Since 80% of file data is typically cold and has not been accessed in months (see Demand for cold data storage heats up | TechTarget), transparently offloading these files to immutable storage through hybrid tiering cuts both costs and risks. Hybrid tiering offloads entire files from the data storage, snapshot, backup and DR footprints while your users continue to see and access the tiered files without any change to your application processes or user behavior. Unlike storage tiering which is typically offered by the storage vendor and causes blocks of files to be controlled by the storage filesystem to be placed in Azure, hybrid tiering operates at the file level and transparently offloads the entire file to Azure while leaving behind a link that looks and behaves like the file itself.  

Hybrid tiering offloads cold files to Azure to cut costs and shrink the ransomware attack surface:

• Cut 70%+ costs: By offloading cold files and not blocks, hybrid tiering can shrink the amount of data you are storing and backing up by 80%, which cuts costs proportionately. As shown in the example below, you can cut 70% of file storage and backup costs by using hybrid tiering.

• Shrink ransomware attack surface by 80%: Offloading cold files to immutable Azure Blob removes cold files from the active attack surface thus eliminating 80% of the storage, DR and backup costs while also providing a potential recovery path if the cold files get infected.  By having Komprise tier to immutable Azure Blob with versioning, even if someone tried to infect a cold file, it would be saved as a new version – enabling recovery using an older version. Learn more about Azure Immutable Blob storage here.

In addition to cost savings and improved ransomware defense, the benefits of Hybrid Cloud Tiering using Komprise and Azure are:

• Leverage Existing Storage Investment: You can continue to use your existing NAS storage and Komprise to tier cold files to Azure. Users and applications continue to see and access the files as if they were still on-premises.
• Leverage Azure Data Services: Komprise maintains file-object duality with its patented Transparent Move Technology (TMT), which means the tiered files can be viewed and accessed in Azure as objects, allowing you to use Azure Data Services natively. This enables you to leverage the full power of Azure with your enterprise file data.
• Works Across Heterogeneous Vendor Storage: Komprise works across all your file and object storage to analyze and transparently tier data to Azure file and object tiers.
• Ongoing Lifecycle Management in Azure: Komprise continues to manage data lifecycle in Azure, so as data gets colder, it can move from Azure Blob Cool to Cold to Archive tier based on policies you control.

Azure and Komprise customers are already using hybrid tiering to improve their ransomware posture while reducing costs – a great example is Katten.

Global law firm saves $900,000 per year and achieves resilient ransomware defense with Komprise and Azure

Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP (Katten) is a full-service law firm delivering legal services across more than a dozen practice areas and sectors, including Aviation, Construction, Energy, Education, Entertainment, Healthcare and Real Estate.

Like many other large law firms, Katten has been seeing an average 20% annual growth in storage for file related data, resulting in the need to add on-premises storage capacity every 12-18 months. With a focus on managing data storage costs in an environment where data is growing exponentially annually but cannot be deleted, Katten needed a solution that could provide deep data insights and the ability to move file data as it ages to immutable object storage in the cloud for greater cost savings and ransomware protection.

Katten Law implemented hybrid tiering using Komprise Intelligent Tiering to Azure and leveraged Immutable Blob storage to not only save $900,000 annually but also improved their ransomware defense posture.  Read how Katten Law does hybrid tiering to Azure using Komprise.

Summary: Hybrid Tiering helps CIOs to optimize file costs and cut ransomware risks

Cost optimization and Risk management are top CIO priorities. File data is a major contributor to both costs and ransomware risks.  Organizations are leveraging Komprise to tier cold files to Azure while continuing to use their on-premises file storage NAS. This provides a low risk approach with no disruption to users and apps while cutting 70% costs and shrinking the ransomware attack surface by 80%. 

Next steps

To learn more and get a customized assessment of your savings, visit the Azure Marketplace listing or contact azure@komprise.com.