What is Elastic Cloud Storage?
Setting up the right cloud infrastructure is of the most important investments a business owner can make. It’s critical for businesses to have easy access to both tools (such as cloud accounting programs or note-taking apps) as well as files, so that data is available anywhere and doesn’t get lost in case of emergency. A vital link in that particular chain for some could be elastic cloud storage, or ECS for short.
As its name implies, ECS is a form of cloud storage from Dell EMC that grows with companies as they expand and evolve from their humble beginnings. There are several forms this can take, but its most prominent features include:
- Storing multiple types of data in one place
- Top tier physical and digital security
- Scalability as the business grows
- Restricting access levels to stored data
- How much data needs storing
Read on to find out exactly how ECS works and how it can adapt to your business’ needs.
How ECS Works
ECS is the answer to common problems with both traditional as well as cloud data storage. ECS has the ability to store multiple types of data on stacks located on site. Having physical data in the office instead of an offsite server (like how most cloud storage works) reduces the chance of a third-party attack on the servers by cybercriminals.
ECS stacks can hold videos, text and anything else in their original form without modifying them. ECS is a smart software that can work with all of the programs a small business is already using and should be able to adapt to them in most cases, allowing for great flexibility when deployed.
Unlike traditional storage, ECS is far less static and can mold itself to the requirements of the business its deployed in. Storage is divided into individual layers which can be scaled independently; being able to scale and shape each layer of ECS storage lets businesses add what they need without having to upgrade what they don’t.
In addition to its design and capability ECS works fast, with Dell boasting that ECS has the ability to scan 10 billion files on a single cluster in under 45 minutes.
Data Storage Capability
A single ECS stack can store over 4PB of data. To put that into perspective, the average plan from our online storage comparison chart falls around 15GB. If you use these figures as a baseline, the math shows that ECS has over 200,000 times the storage space of what is commonly on offer.
As a business grows, so does how much data its owner needs to store. With ECS there’s no limit to the storage you can employ, or what kind of tools you can run. If it all works as advertised, we’re talking about a real sea change in what’s possible with cloud computing.
ECS and Data Security
ECS takes security very seriously. Security is monitored at all levels. Some of the security measures that ECS takes at the surface level include.
Data security is done with HTTPS for data in motion and/or server-side encryption for data at rest. This dual encryption protects data anywhere it might be vulnerable.
ECS takes data encryption one step further by storing data on magnetic disks. These disks are unreadable if they are taken outside of the onsite data center.
One of ECS’ strongest features is that data is stored in the user’s building. Normal cloud storage happens in offsite servers. With offsite servers users have no idea where the data is physically located or who can access it. Storing data on an onsite stack protects business owners from these possible threats.
The Cost of ECS
According to Dell, ECS costs 48 percent less than other cloud storage options. Users will need to request an individual quote for an exact amount. To try it out, Dell lets potential customers download a non-production version of ECS storage software free.
The reason that ECS can keep their prices this low is its setup. ECS does have industry grade hardware but is software defined so users can enjoy the same economics as any public cloud environment.
Notable ECS Features
ECS can communicate in commonly used protocols like Hadoop, HDFS, Amazon S3, OpenStack, Swift, NFS, EMC, and Atmos.
ECS allows its users to perform metadata searches. Users can search for user-defined and system-defined metadata in order to easily get critical information.
Users can set up access levels for ECS cloud storage systems. ECS has ‘multi tenancy’ which allows administrators to restrict which levels of data users have access to. The benefit of this feature to businesses with sensitive finance or product information is huge.
Normally to store many different types of data users need costly data silos. ECS users can store and access all kinds of data housed in one convenient stack.
Conclusion
For a large business with high security needs and a lot of data, ECS can’t be beat. The clever on-site setup lets businesses securely upload, manage, and store large amounts of data. In both quality and price ECS is a cloud storage star.
What do you think? Does ECS sound like a good fit for your business? Do you have any questions about ECS? Let us know in the comments below and thank you for reading.