Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-run-vfx-workflows-in-the-cloud/

An hour from Queens. An hour from Jersey. Two hours from Staten Island. That’s how long it would take Molecule VFX IT staff to travel from their homes to the closet in Manhattan that housed the team’s LTO device. All those hours, just to spend five minutes switching out one tape.

It was a huge waste of time, not to mention subway fares. The hassle of tape wasn’t the only reason Molecule decided to make their production workflows fully cloud-based, but the IT team certainly doesn’t mind skipping that trip these days.

Moving production entirely to the cloud allowed Molecule to unlock the value of their artists’ time as well as the IT staff to support them, and save money in the process. If your media team has been contemplating a fully cloud-based workflow, read on to learn how Molecule did it—including how they managed to maintain the ability to move data from the cloud back to tape on demand without maintaining on-premises tape infrastructure.

Molecule’s Case for the Cloud

Visual effects artists want to be able to hop into a new script, work on it, render it, review it, QC it, and call it done. Their work is the most valuable element of the business. Anything that gets in the way of that or slows down the workflow directly impacts the company’s success, and an on-premises system was doing exactly that.

• With IT staff working from home, LTO maintenance tied them up for hours—time that could have been spent helping Molecule’s visual effects artists create.
• Beyond tape, the team managed a whole system of machines, networks, and switches. Day-to-day issues could knock out the company’s ability to get work done for entire days.

They knew moving to the cloud would optimize staff time and mitigate those outages, but it didn’t happen overnight. Because much of their business already happens in the digital workspace, Molecule had been slowly moving to the cloud over the past few years. The shift to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated their transition.

Strategies for Moving VFX Workflows to the Cloud

Molecule’s Full Stack Software Architect, Ben Zenker, explained their approach. Through the process, he identified a few key strategies that made the transition a success, including:

• Taking a phased approach while deciding between hybrid and fully cloud-based workflows.
• Reading the fine print when comparing providers.
• Rolling their own solutions where possible.
• Thoroughly testing workflows.
• Repurposing on-premises infrastructure.

1. Take a Phased Approach

Early in the transition, the Molecule team was still using the tape system and an on-premises Isilon server for some workloads. Because they were still deciding if they were going to have a hybrid system or go fully cloud, they took an ad hoc approach to identifying what data was going to be in Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage and what production infrastructure was going to be in CoreWeave, a cloud compute partner that specializes in VFX workloads. Ben explained, “Once we decided definitively we wanted to be fully in the cloud, connecting CoreWeave and Backblaze was simple—if it was on CoreWeave, it was getting backed up in Backblaze B2 nightly.”

2. Read the Fine Print

The team planned to sync incremental backups to the cloud every night. That meant their data would change every day as staff deleted or updated files. They figured out early on that retention minimums were a non-starter. Some cloud providers charge for deleted data for 30, 60, or even 90 days, meaning Molecule would be forced to pay for storage on data they had deleted months ago. But not all cloud providers are transparent about their retention policies. Molecule took the time to track down these policies and compare costs.

“Backblaze was the only service that met our business requirements without a retention minimum.”
—Ben Zenker, Full Stack Software Architect, Molecule VFX

3. Roll Your Own Solutions Where Possible

The team creates a lot of their own web tools to interact with other technology, so it was a relatively easy lift to set up rclone commands to run syncs of their production data nightly to Backblaze B2. Using rclone, they also built a variable price reporting tool so that higher ups could easily price out different projects and catch potential problems like a runaway render.

“There are hundreds of options that you can pass into rclone, so configuring it involved some trial and error. Thankfully it’s open-source, and Backblaze has documentation. I made some small tweaks and additions to the tool myself to make it work better for us.”
—Ben Zenker, Full Stack Software Architect, Molecule VFX

4. Test and Test Again

In reflecting on the testing phase they went through, Ben acknowledges he could have been more liberal. He noted, “I went into it a little cautious because I didn’t want to end up incurring big charges for a test, but Backblaze has all sorts of safeguards in place. You can set price limits and caps, which was great for the testing period.”

5. Repurpose On-premises Infrastructure

The on-premises Isilon server and the physical tape system are no longer part of the active project workflow. They still utilized those devices to host some core services for a time—a firewall, authentication, and a VPN that some members used. In the end, they decided to fully retire all on-premises infrastructure, but repurposing the on-premises infrastructure allowed them to maximize its useful life.

But What If Clients Demand Tape?

While Molecule is more than happy to have modernized their workflows in the cloud, there are still some clients—and major clients at that—who require that contractors save final projects on tape for long-term storage. It no longer made sense to have staff trained on how to use the LTO system, so when a customer asked for a tape copy, they reached out to Backblaze for advice.

They needed a turnkey solution that they didn’t have to manage, and they definitely didn’t want to have to resort to reinvesting and managing tape hardware. Backblaze partner, TapeArk, fit the bill. TapeArk typically helps clients get data off of tape and into the cloud, but in this case they reversed the process. Molecule sent them a secure token to the exact piece of data they needed. TapeArk managed the download, put it on tape, and shipped it to the client.

If Molecule needs to send tape copies to clients in the future, they have an easy, hands-off solution and they don’t have to maintain an LTO system for infrequent use. Ben was grateful for the partnership and easy solution.

Cloud Workflows Free Up a Month of Time

Now that the staff no longer has to manage an LTO tape system, the team has recouped at least 30 payroll days a year that can be dedicated to supporting artists. Ben noted that with the workflows in the cloud, the nature of the IT workload has changed, and the team definitely appreciates having that time back to respond to changing demands.

Ready to move your VFX workflows to the cloud? Start testing today with 10GB of data storage free from Backblaze B2.

The post How to Run VFX Workflows in the Cloud appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Pat Patterson original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/building-a-multiregion-origin-store-with-backblaze-b2-fastly-computeedge/

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage customers have long leveraged our partner Fastly’s Deliver@Edge CDN as an essential component of a modern, scalable web architecture. Complementing Deliver@Edge, Compute@Edge is a serverless computing environment built on the same caching platform to provide a general-purpose compute layer between the cloud and end users. Today, we’re excited to celebrate Fastly’s announcement of its Compute@Edge partner ecosystem.

Serverless computing is quickly gaining popularity among developers for its simplicity, agility, and functionality. In the serverless model, cloud providers allocate resources to applications on demand, managing the compute infrastructure on behalf of their customers. The term, “serverless,” is a little misleading: The servers are actually still there, but customers don’t have to get involved in their provisioning, configuration, maintenance, or scaling.

Fastly’s Compute@Edge represents the next generation of serverless computing—purpose-built for better performance, reduced latency, and enhanced visibility and security. Using Fastly’s tools, a developer can create an edge application, test it locally, then with one command, deploy it to the Compute@Edge platform. When a request for that application reaches any of Fastly’s global network of edge servers, the application is launched and running in microseconds and can instantly scale to tens of thousands of requests per second.

It’s difficult to overstate the power and flexibility this puts in your hands as a developer—your application can be running on every edge server, with access to every attribute of its incoming requests, assembling responses in any way you choose. For an idea of the possibilities, check out the Compute@Edge demos, in particular, the implementation of the video game classic, “Doom.”

We don’t have space in a single blog post to explore an edge application of that magnitude, but read on for a simple example of how you can combine Fastly’s Compute@Edge with Backblaze B2 to improve your website’s user experience, directing requests to the optimal origin store end point based on the user’s location.

The Case for a Multiregion Origin Store

Although the CDN caches resources to improve performance, if a requested resource is not present in the edge server cache, it must be fetched from the origin store. When the edge server is close to the origin store, the increase in latency is minimal. If, on the other hand, the edge server is on a different continent from the origin store, it can take significantly longer to retrieve uncached content. In most cases, this additional delay is hardly noticeable, but for websites with many resources that are frequently updated, it can add up to a sluggish experience for users. A solution is for the origin store to maintain multiple copies of a website’s content, each at an end point in a different region. This approach can dramatically reduce the penalty for cache misses, improving the user experience.

There is a problem here, though: How do we ensure that a given CDN edge server directs requests to the “best” end point? The answer: build an application that uses the edge server’s location to select the end point. I’ll explain how I did just that, creating a Fastly Compute@Edge application to proxy requests to Backblaze B2 buckets.

Creating an Application on Fastly Compute@Edge

The Fastly Compute@Edge developer documentation did a great job of walking me through creating a Compute@Edge application. As part of the process, I had to choose a starter kit—a simple working application targeting a specific use case. The Static Content starter kit was the ideal basis for my application—it demonstrates many useful techniques, such as generating an AWS V4 Signature and manipulating the request’s Host HTTP header to match the origin store.

The core of the application is just a few lines written in the Rust programming language:

#[fastly::main]
 
fn main(mut req: Request) -> Result<Response, Error> {
// 1. Where is the application running?
let pop = get_pop(&req);

// 9. Return the response to the client
return Ok(beresp);
}

In step one, the get_pop function returns the three-letter abbreviation for the edge server, or point of presence (POP). For the purposes of testing, you can specify a POP as a query parameter in your HTTP request. For example, https://three.interesting.words.edgecompute.app/image.png?pop=AMS will simulate the application running on the Amsterdam POP. Next, in step two, the application looks up the POP in a mapping of POPs to Backblaze B2 end points. There are about a hundred Fastly POPs spread around the world; I simply took the list generated by running the Fastly command-line tool with the POPs argument, and assigned POPs to Backblaze B2 end points based on their location:

• POPs in North America, South America, and Asia/Pacific map to the U.S. end point.
• POPs in Europe and Africa map to the EU end point.

I won’t step through the rest of the logic in detail here—the comments in the code sample above cover the basics; feel free to examine the code in detail on GitHub if you’d like a closer look.

Serve Your Own Data From Multiple Backblaze B2 Regions

As you can see in the screenshot above, Fastly has implemented a Deploy to Fastly button. You can use this to create your own copy of the Backblaze B2 Compute@Edge demo application in just a couple of minutes. You’ll need to gather a few prerequisites before you start:

• You must create Backblaze B2 accounts in both the U.S. and EU regions. If you have an existing account and you’re not sure which region it’s in, just take a look at the end point for one of your buckets. For example, this bucket is in the U.S. West region:

  

  To create your second account, go to the Sign Up page, and click the Region drop-down on the right under the big, red Sign Up button:

  

  Pick the region in which you don’t already have an account, and enter an email and password. Remember, your new account comes with 10GB of storage, free of charge, so there’s no need to enter your credit card details.

  Note: You’ll need to use a different email address from your existing account. If you don’t have a second email address, you can use the plus trick (officially known as sub-addressing) and reuse an existing email address. For example, if you used [email protected] for your existing B2 Cloud Storage account in the U.S. region, you can use [email protected] for your new EU account. Mail will be routed to the same inbox, and Backblaze B2 will be satisfied that it’s a different email address. This technique isn’t limited to Gmail, by the way, it works with many email providers.

• Create a private bucket in each account, and use your tool of choice to copy the same data into each of them. Make a note of the end point for each bucket.
• Create an application key with read access to each bucket.
• Sign up for a free Fastly account if you don’t already have one. Right now, this includes free credits for Compute@Edge.
• Sign up for a free GitHub account.
• Go to the Backblaze B2/Fastly Compute@Edge Demo GitHub repository, click the Deploy to Fastly button, and follow the prompts. The repository will be forked to your GitHub account and then deployed to Fastly.
• Important: There is one post-deploy step you must complete before your application will work! In your new GitHub repository, navigate to src/config.rs and hit the pencil icon near the top right to edit the file. Change the origin configuration in lines 18-31 to match your buckets and their end points. Alternatively, you can, of course, clone the repository to your local machine, edit it there, and push the changes back to GitHub.

Once you have your accounts and buckets created, it takes just a few minutes to deploy the application. Watch me walk through the process:

What Can You Do With Fastly’s Compute@Edge and Backblaze B2?

My simple demo application only scratches the surfaces of Compute@Edge. How could you combine Fastly’s edge computing platform with Backblaze B2 to create a new capability for your website? Check out Fastly’s collection of over 100 Compute@Edge code samples for inspiration. If you come up with something neat and share it on GitHub, let me know in the comments and I’ll round up a bundle of Backblaze-branded goodies, just for you!

The post Building a Multiregion Origin Store With Backblaze B2 + Fastly Compute@Edge appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Pat Patterson original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/explore-the-backblaze-s3-compatible-api-with-our-new-postman-collection/

Postman is a platform for building and using APIs. API providers such as Backblaze can use Postman to build API documentation and provide a live environment for developers to experiment with those APIs. Today, you can interact with Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage via our new Postman Collection for the Backblaze S3 Compatible API.

Using the Backblaze S3 Compatible API

The Backblaze S3 Compatible API implements the most commonly used S3 operations, allowing applications to integrate with Backblaze B2 in exactly the same way they do with Amazon S3. Many of our Alliance Partners have used the S3 Compatible API in integrating their products and services with Backblaze B2. Often, integration is as simple as allowing the user to specify a custom endpoint, for example, https://s3.us-west-001.backblazeb2.com, alongside their API credentials in the S3 settings, and verifying that the application works as expected with Backblaze B2.

Most applications and scripts use one of the AWS SDKs or the S3 commands in the AWS CLI to access Backblaze B2. All of the SDKs, and the CLI, allow you to override the default Amazon S3 endpoint in favor of Backblaze B2. Sometimes, though, you might want to interact directly with Backblaze B2 via the S3 Compatible API, perhaps in debugging an issue, or just to better understand how the service works.

Exploring the Backblaze S3 Compatible API in Postman

Our new Backblaze S3 Compatible API Documentation page is the definitive reference for developers wishing to access Backblaze B2 directly via the S3 Compatible API.

In addition to reading the documentation, you can click the Run in Postman button on the top right of the page, log in to the Postman website or desktop app (creating a Postman account is free), and interact with the API.

Integrate With Backblaze B2

Whether you are backing up, archiving data, or serving content via the web, Backblaze B2 is an easy to use and, at a quarter of the cost of Amazon S3, cost-effective cloud object storage solution. If you’re not already using Backblaze B2, sign up now and try it out—your first 10GB of storage is free!

The post Explore the Backblaze S3 Compatible API With Our New Postman Collection appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-is-private-cloud-storage/

No matter what business you’re in, you’re in the data business. Your files are the backbone of your entire operation and losing access to them would be a disaster. As such, it’s perfectly understandable if you’re a little protective of these all-important 1s and 0s. As you begin your search for a data storage solution, understanding some cloud basics can help you make the best decision, and one option that may cross your desk is the private cloud.

What Is the Private Cloud?

A private cloud is essentially storage dedicated solely to your organization, but accessible from anywhere. While you can outsource the physical infrastructure of this private cloud to a data center, you do have the option to keep it on-premises. It is a costlier solution than typical public cloud storage, but the trade-off is a higher level of security and control over your data.

Public and Private Clouds: By the Numbers

In 2020, spending on cloud services grew significantly: Public cloud spending reached $14 billion, and private cloud spending reached $5 billion, according to an IDC study. IDC also found that “on-premises private clouds” make up nearly two-thirds (i.e., 64%) of private cloud spending.

According to the Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report, 97% of respondents used a public cloud and 80% of respondents used a private cloud. As you can see, there is plenty of overlap. Using a public cloud versus a private cloud is not an either/or decision—78% of respondents use both public and private clouds in a hybrid cloud solution.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Private Clouds

Both the private cloud and the public cloud have their advantages. Benefits of the public cloud include low cost and a higher adoption rate than the private cloud. Therefore, a public cloud can be cheaper to run and it can be easier to find employees who know how to use the public cloud. The high adoption rate also means it is easier to find third-party consultants and experts to provide help when you need it. On the other hand, a private cloud offers advantages such as faster access to data when using on-premises infrastructure and more control over security.

Private Cloud: Use Cases

To better understand how private cloud services can be beneficial, let’s take a closer look at use cases. There are a few reasons organizations are investing time and resources into private cloud deployments:

• Regulatory compliance. Some industries face high demand for security. For example, financial services and health care organizations frequently handle highly sensitive data. As a result, these organizations may find that the greater security safeguards available through a private cloud may be a good fit. Further, Gartner points out that the U.S. government is starting to increase its adoption of private cloud services. If your organization operates in a highly regulated industry with significant IT security or privacy protection requirements, using a private cloud may make sense. Finally, government contractors may be expected to use the private cloud to give their government clients extra peace of mind regarding security.
• Meeting high-performance requirements. In some situations, a private cloud may provide access to faster IT services. For instance, an on-premises private cloud may serve data to local users much faster than a private cloud located thousands of miles away. A large organization that needs to work with large volumes of data like video files and big data analytics may find private cloud services a good fit. If a company sees a competitive opportunity in speed (e.g., high-frequency trading in financial services), then a private cloud could be an attractive option.
• Specific hardware requirements. In a public cloud environment, the end user generally has limited input regarding specific hardware. By contrast, a company willing to pay for a private cloud service will have more control over specific hardware investments.

Public vs. Private: Why Not Both?

Using both private and public clouds simultaneously is called a hybrid cloud solution, and it may be the best way to balance your security needs against your budget constraints to optimize your storage infrastructure. You can use an on-premises private cloud for sensitive files or larger files that will be accessed on a daily basis, while maintaining public cloud storage space for archives or files that need to be accessed remotely by outside vendors or clients. The reduced cost of public cloud storage gives you greater flexibility in tweaking your private vs. public cloud needs to fit your budget.

Managing a Private Cloud Effectively

Using private cloud data storage services has the potential to offer greater security. If your cloud portfolio includes the private cloud, use the following tips to get the most from those services.

• Manage the scalability limitations of the private cloud. In contrast to a public cloud service, you may find it more difficult or time-consuming to scale up and scale down private cloud services. This challenge can be mitigated in a few ways. For instance, you could pursue a hybrid cloud approach using the private cloud for smaller amounts of highly sensitive data and put the bulk of your corporate data in a public cloud.
• Enhance your cost management process. A private cloud service comes with higher up-front costs and maintenance costs. And, in a public cloud, your costs can vary based on the amount of storage you’re using at any given time. With a private cloud, once you’ve made that capital expenditure, whether on-premises or off, the capacity is already paid for. However, it requires very accurate assessments of future needs to predict any further spending on capacity. If you run out of space, you’re facing another capital investment.
• Managing maintenance risk. Compared to a public cloud deployment, private cloud storage can be relatively complex to manage. If upkeep slips, you may start to suffer increasing security risks and lost performance.
• Challenge customization requests. The ability to customize a private cloud is a double-edged sword. The flexibility is attractive for departments with unusual requirements. On the other hand, each private cloud customization request may involve additional fees and security complexities. Therefore, it may be wise to challenge requests for cloud customization and see if business users can achieve their goals with minimal customization.

Are You Using a Private Cloud?

We’re all in the data business, but nobody knows your business like you. Ultimately, the decision to balance data security against financial concerns will come down to your individual needs and budgetary realities. But for those files that require an extra layer of security, whether it’s for regulatory or operational reasons, a private cloud solution gives you control over your data that is worth the added expense.

Are you using a public cloud, a private cloud, or both? Let us know in the comments.

The post What Is Private Cloud Storage? appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Pat Patterson original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/free-image-hosting-with-cloudflare-transform-rules-and-backblaze-b2/

Before I dive into using Cloudflare Transform Rules to implement image hosting on Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself. I’m Pat Patterson, recently hired by Backblaze as chief developer evangelist. I’ve been working with technology and technical communities for close to two decades, at companies such as Sun Microsystems and Salesforce. I’ll be creating and delivering technical content for you, our Backblaze B2 community, and advocating on your behalf within Backblaze. Feel free to follow my journey and reach out to me via Twitter or LinkedIn.

Cloudflare Transform Rules

Now, on with the show! Cloudflare Transform Rules give you access to HTTP traffic at the CDN edge server, allowing you to manipulate the URI path, query string, and HTTP headers of incoming requests and outgoing responses. Where Cloudflare Workers allows you to write JavaScript code that executes in the same environment, Transform Rules give you much of the same power without the semi-colons and curly braces.

Let’s look at a specific use case: implementing image hosting on top of a cloud object store. Backblaze power user James Ross wrote an excellent blog post back in August 2019, long before the introduction of Transform Rules, explaining how to do this with Cloudflare Workers and Backblaze B2. We’ll see how much of James’ solution we can recreate with Transform Rules, without writing any code. We’ll also discover how the combination of Cloudflare and Backblaze allows you to create your own, personal 10GB image hosting site for free.

Implementing Image Hosting on a Cloud Object Store

James’ requirements were simple:

• Serve image files from a custom domain, such as files.example.com, rather than the cloud storage provider’s domain.
• Remove the bucket name, and any other extraneous information, from the URL.
• Remove extraneous headers, such as the object ID, from the HTTP response.
• Improve caching (both browser and edge cache) for images.
• Add basic CORS headers to allow embedding of images on external sites.

I’ll work through each of these requirements in this blog post, and wrap up by explaining why Backblaze B2 might be a better long term provider for this and many other cloud object storage use cases than other cloud object stores.

It’s worth noting that nothing here is Backblaze B2-specific—the user’s browser is requesting objects from a B2 Cloud Storage public bucket via their URLs, just as it would with any other cloud object store. The techniques are exactly the same on Amazon S3, for example.

Prerequisites

You’ll need accounts with both Cloudflare and Backblaze. You can get started for free with both:

• Cloudflare
• Backblaze B2

You’ll also need your own DNS domain, which I’ll call example.com in this article, on which you can create subdomains such as files.example.com. If you’ve read this far, you likely already have at least one. Otherwise, you can register a new domain at Cloudflare for a few dollars a year, or your local equivalent.

Create a Bucket for Your Images

If you already have a B2 Cloud Storage bucket you want to use for your image store, you can skip this section. Note: It doesn’t matter whether you created the bucket and its objects via the B2 Native API, the Backblaze S3 Compatible API, or any other mechanism—your objects are accessible to Cloudflare via their friendly URLs.

Log in to Backblaze, and click Buckets on the left under B2 Cloud Storage, then Create a Bucket. You will need to give your bucket a unique name, and make it public. Leave the other settings with their default values.

Note that the bucket name must be globally unique within Backblaze B2, so you can’t just call it something like “myfiles.” You’ll hide the bucket name from public view, so you can call it literally anything, as long as there isn’t already a Backblaze B2 bucket with that name.

Finally, click Upload/Download and upload a test file to your new bucket.

Click the file to see its details, including its various URLs.

In the next step, you’ll rewrite requests that use your custom subdomain, for example, https://files.example.com/smiley.png, to the friendly URL of the form, https://f004.backblazeb2.com/file/metadaddy-public/smiley.png.

Make a note of the hostname in the friendly URL. As you can see in the previous paragraph, mine is f004.backblazeb2.com.

Create a DNS Subdomain for Your Image Host

You will need to activate your domain (example.com, rather than files.example.com) in your Cloudflare account, if you have not already done so.

Now, in the Cloudflare dashboard, create your subdomain by adding a DNS CNAME record pointing to the bucket hostname you made a note of earlier.

I created files.superpat.com, which points to my bucket’s hostname, f004.backblazeb2.com.

If you test this right now by going to your test file’s URL in your custom subdomain, for example, https://files.example.com/file/my-unique-bucket-name/smiley.png, after a few seconds you will see a 522 “connection timed out” error from Cloudflare:

This is because, by default, Cloudflare accesses the upstream server via plain HTTP, rather than HTTPS. Backblaze only supports secure HTTPS connections, so the HTTP request fails. To remedy this, in the SSL/TLS section of the Cloudflare dashboard, change the encryption mode from “Flexible” to “Full (strict),” so that Cloudflare connects to Backblaze via HTTPS, and requires a CA-issued certificate.

Now you should be able to access your test file in your custom subdomain via a URL of the form https://files.example.com/file/my-unique-bucket-name/smiley.png. The next task is to create the first Transform Rule to remove /file/my-unique-bucket-name from the URL.

Rewrite the URL Path on Incoming Requests

There are three varieties of Cloudflare Transform Rules:

• URL Rewrite Rules: Rewrite the URL path and query string of an HTTP request.
• HTTP Request Header Modification Rules: Set the value of an HTTP request header or remove a request header.
• HTTP Response Header Modification Rules: Set the value of an HTTP response header or remove a response header.

Click Rules on the left of the Cloudflare dashboard, then Transform Rules. You’ll see that the Cloudflare free plan includes 10 Transform Rules—plenty for our purposes. Click Create Transform Rule, then Rewrite URL.

It’s useful to pause for a moment and think about what we need to ask Cloudflare to do. Users will be requesting URLs of the form https://files.example.com/smiley.png, and we want the request to Backblaze B2 to be like https://f004.backblazeb2.com/file/metadaddy-public/smiley.png. We’ve already taken care of the domain part of the URL, so it becomes clear that all we need to do is prefix the outgoing URL with /file/<bucket name>.

Give your rule a descriptive name such as “Add file and bucket name.”

There is an opportunity to set a condition that incoming requests must match to fire the trigger. In James’ article, he tested that the path did not already begin with the /file/<bucket name> prefix, so that you can refer to a file with either the short or long URL.

At first glance, the Cloudflare dashboard doesn’t offer “does not start with” as an operator.

However, clicking Edit expression reveals a more powerful way of specifying the condition:

The Cloudflare Rules language allows us to express our condition precisely:

Moving on, Cloudflare offers static and dynamic options for rewriting the path. A static rewrite would apply the same value to the URL path of every request. This use case requires a dynamic rewrite, where, for each request, Cloudflare evaluates the value as an expression which yields the path.

Your expression would prepend the existing path with /file/<bucket name>, like this:

Save the Transform Rule, and try to access your test file again, this time without the /file/<bucket name> prefix in the URL path, for example: https://files.example.com/smiley.png.

You should see your test file, as expected:

Great! Now, let’s take a look at those HTTP headers in the response.

Remove HTTP Headers From the Response

You could use Chrome Developer Tools to view the response headers, but I prefer the curl command line tool. I used the --head argument to show the HTTP headers without the response body, since my terminal would not be happy with binary image data!

Note: I’ve removed some extraneous headers from this and subsequent HTTP responses for clarity and length.

% curl --head https://files.superpat.com/smiley.png
HTTP/2 200
date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:26:10 GMT
content-type: image/png
content-length: 23889
x-bz-file-name: smiley.png
x-bz-file-id: 4_zf1f51fb913357c4f74ed0c1b_f1163cc3f37a60613_d20220119_m204457_c004_v0402000_t0044
x-bz-content-sha1: 3cea1118fbaab607a7afd930480670970b278586
x-bz-upload-timestamp: 1642625097000
x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis: 1642192830529
cache-control: max-age=14400
cf-cache-status: MISS
last-modified: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:26:10 GMT

Our goal is to remove all the x-bz headers. Create a Modify Response Header rule and set its name to something like “Remove Backbaze B2 Headers.” We want this rule to apply to all traffic, so the match expression is simple:

Unfortunately there isn’t a way to tell Cloudflare to remove all the headers that are prefixed x-bz, so we just have to list them all:

Save the rule, and request your test file again. You should see fewer headers:

% curl --head https://files.superpat.com/smiley.png
HTTP/2 200
date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:57:01 GMT
content-type: image/png
content-length: 23889
x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis: 1642192830529
cache-control: max-age=14400
cf-cache-status: HIT
age: 1851
last-modified: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:26:10 GMT

Note: As you can see, for some reason Cloudflare does not remove the x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis header. I’ve reported this to Cloudflare as a bug.

Optimize Cache Efficiency via the ETag and Cache-Control HTTP Headers

We can follow James’ lead in making caching more efficient by leveraging the ETag header. As explained in the MDN Web Docs for ETag:

The ETag (or entity tag) HTTP response header is an identifier for a specific version of a resource. It lets caches be more efficient and save bandwidth, as a web server does not need to resend a full response if the content was not changed.

Essentially, a cache can just request the HTTP headers for a resource and only proceed to fetch the resource body if the ETag has changed.

James constructed the ETag by using one of x-bz-content-sha1, x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis, or x-bz-file-id, in that order. If none of those headers are set, then neither is ETag. It’s not possible to express this level of complexity in a Transform Rule, but we can apply a little lateral thinking to the problem. We can easily concatenate the three headers to create a result that will change when any one or more of them changes:

concat(http.response.headers["x-bz-content-sha1"][0],
http.response.headers["x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis"][0],
http.response.headers["x-bz-file-id"][0])

Note that it’s possible for there to be multiple values of a given HTTP header, so http.response.headers["<header-name>"] is an array. http.response.headers["<header-name>"][0] yields the first, and in most cases only, element of the array.

Edit the Transform Rule you just created, update its name to something like “Remove Backblaze B2 Headers, set ETag,” and add a header with a dynamic value:

Don’t worry about the ordering; Cloudflare will reorder the operations so that “set” occurs before “remove.” Also, if none of those headers are present in the response, resulting in an empty value for the ETag header, Cloudflare will not set that header at all. Exactly the behavior we need!

Another test shows the result. Note that HTTP headers are not case-sensitive, so etag has just the same meaning as ETag:

% curl --head https://files.superpat.com/smiley.png
HTTP/2 200
date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 02:01:19 GMT
content-type: image/png
content-length: 23889
x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis: 1642192830529
cache-control: max-age=14400
cf-cache-status: HIT
age: 2198
last-modified: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:24:41 GMT
etag: 3cea1118fbaab607a7afd930480670970b27858616421928305294_zf1f51fb913357c4f74ed0c1b_f1163cc3f37a60613_d20220119_m204457_c004_v0402000_t0044

The other cache-related header is Cache-Control, which tells the browser how to cache the resource. As you can see in the above responses, Cloudflare sets Cache-Control to a max-age of 14400 seconds, or four hours.

James’ code, on the other hand, sets Cache-Control according to whether or not the request to B2 Cloud Storage is successful. For an HTTP status code of 200, Cache-Control is set to public, max-age=31536000, instructing the browser to cache the response for 31,536,000 seconds; in other words, a year. For any other HTTP status, Cache-Control is set to public, max-age=300, so the browser only caches the response for five minutes. In both cases, the public directive indicates that the response can be cached in a shared cache, even if the request contained an Authorization header field.

Note: We’re effectively assuming that once created, files on the image host are immutable. This is often true for this use case, but you should think carefully about cache policy when you build your own solutions.

At present, Cloudflare Transform Rules do not give access to the HTTP status code, but, again, we can satisfy the requirement with a little thought and investigation. As mentioned above, for successful operations, Cloudflare sets Cache-Control to max-age=14400, or four hours. For failed operations, for example, requesting a non-existent object, Cloudflare passes back the Cache-Control header from Backblaze B2 of max-age=0, no-cache, no-store. With this information, it’s straightforward to construct a Transform Rule to increase max-age from 14400 to 31536000 for the successful case:

Again, we need to use [0] to select the first matching HTTP header. Notice that this rule uses a static value for the header—it’s the same for every matching response.

We’ll leave the header as it’s set by B2 Cloud Storage for failure cases, though it would be just as easy to override it.

Another test shows the results of our efforts:

% curl --head https://files.superpat.com/smiley.png
HTTP/2 200
date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 02:31:38 GMT
content-type: image/png
content-length: 23889
x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis: 1642192830529
cache-control: public, max-age=31536000
cf-cache-status: HIT
age: 4017
last-modified: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:24:41 GMT
etag: 3cea1118fbaab607a7afd930480670970b27858616421928305294_zf1f51fb913357c4f74ed0c1b_f1163cc3f37a60613_d20220119_m204457_c004_v0402000_t0044

Checking the failure case—notice that there is no ETag header, since B2 Cloud Storage did not return any x-bz headers:

% curl --head https://files.superpat.com/badname.png
HTTP/2 404
date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 02:32:35 GMT
content-type: application/json;charset=utf-8
content-length: 94
cache-control: max-age=0, no-cache, no-store
cf-cache-status: BYPASS

Success! Browsers and caches will aggressively cache responses, reducing the burden on Cloudflare and Backblaze B2.

Set a CORS Header for Image Files

We’re almost done! Our final requirement is to set a cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) header for images so that they can be manipulated in web pages from any domain on the web.

The Transform Rule must match a range of file extensions, and set the Access-Control-Allow-Origin HTTP response header to allow any webpage to access resources:

Upload a text file and run a final couple of tests to see the results. First, the image:

% curl --head https://files.superpat.com/smiley.png
HTTP/2 200
date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 02:50:52 GMT
content-type: image/png
content-length: 23889
x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis: 1642192830529
cache-control: public, max-age=31536000
cf-cache-status: HIT
age: 4459
last-modified: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 01:36:33 GMT
etag: 3cea1118fbaab607a7afd930480670970b27858616421928305294_zf1f51fb913357c4f74ed0c1b_f1163cc3f37a60613_d20220119_m204457_c004_v0402000_t0044
access-control-allow-origin: *

The Access-Control-Allow-Origin header is present, as expected.

Finally, the text file, without an Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. You can use the --include argument rather than --head to see the file content as well as the headers:

% curl --include https://files.superpat.com/hello.txt
HTTP/2 200
date: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 02:48:51 GMT
content-type: text/plain
content-length: 14
accept-ranges: bytes
x-bz-info-src_last_modified_millis: 1642646740075
cf-cache-status: DYNAMIC
etag: 60fde9c2310b0d4cad4dab8d126b04387efba28916426467400754_zf1f51fb913357c4f74ed0c1b_f1092902424a40504_d20220120_m024635_c004_v0402003_t0000

Hello, World!

Troubleshooting

The most frequent issue I encountered while getting all this working was mixing up request and response when referencing HTTP headers. If things are not working as expected, double check that you don’t have http.response.headers["<header-name>"] where you need http.request.headers["<header-name>"] or vice versa.

Can I Really Do This Free of Charge?

Backblaze B2 pricing is very simple:

Storage

• The first 10GB of storage is free of charge.
• Above 10GB, we charge $0.005/GB/month, around a quarter of the cost of other leading cloud object stores (cough, S3, cough).
• Storage cost is calculated hourly, with no minimum retention requirement, and billed monthly.

Downloaded Data

• The first 1GB of data downloaded each day is free.
• Above 1GB, we charge $0.01/GB, but…
• Downloads through our CDN and compute partners, of which Cloudflare is one, are free.

Transactions

• Each download operation counts as one class B transaction.
• The first 2,500 class B transactions each day are free.
• Beyond 2,500 class B transactions, they are charged at a rate of $0.004 per 10,000.

No Surprise Bills

• If you already signed up for Backblaze B2, you might have noticed that you didn’t have to provide a credit card number. Your 10GB of free storage never expires, and there is no chance of you unexpectedly incurring any charges.

By serving your images via Cloudflare’s global CDN and optimizing your cache configuration as described above, you will incur no download costs from B2 Cloud Storage, and likely stay well within the 2,500 free download operations per day. Similarly, Cloudflare’s free plan does not require a credit card for activation, and there are no data or transaction limits.

Sign up for Backblaze B2 today, deploy your own personal image host, explore our off-the-shelf integrations, and consider what you can create with an affordable, S3-compatible cloud object storage platform.

The post Free Image Hosting With Cloudflare Transform Rules and Backblaze B2 appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Amrit Singh original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/cloud-performance-and-when-it-matters/

If you run an application that’s bandwidth intensive like media streaming, game hosting, or an e-commerce platform, performance is probably top of mind. You need to be able to deliver content to your users fast and without errors in order to keep them happy. But, what specific performance metrics matter for your use case?

As it turns out, you might think you need a Porsche when what you really need and want to transport your data with is a trusty, reliable (Still speedy!) Volvo.

In this post, we’re taking a closer look at performance metrics and when they matter as well as some strategies that can impact performance, including range requests, prefetching, and others. When you’re assessing a cloud solution for application development, taking these factors into consideration can help you make the best decision for your business.

Performance Metrics: Time to First Byte

Time to first byte (TTFB) is the time between a page request and when the page receives the first byte of information from the server. In other words, TTFB is measured by how long it takes between the start of the request and the start of the response, including DNS lookup and establishing the connection using a TCP handshake and SSL handshake if you’ve made the request over HTTPS.

TTFB identifies pages that load slowly due to server-side calculations that could instead benefit from client-side scripting. It’s often used to assess search rankings by displaying websites that respond to a request faster and appear more usable before other websites.

TTFB is a useful metric, but it doesn’t tell the whole story every time and shouldn’t be the only metric used to make decisions when it comes to choosing a cloud storage solution. For example, when David Liu, Founder and CEO of Musify, a music streaming app, approached his search for a new cloud storage provider, he had a specific TTFB benchmark in mind. He thought he absolutely needed to meet this benchmark in order for his new storage solution to work for his use case, however, upon further testing, he found that his initial benchmark was more aggressive than he actually needed. The performance he got by utilizing Cloudflare in front of his origin store in Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage more than met his needs and served his users well.

Optimizing Cloud Storage Performance

TTFB is the dominant method of measuring performance, but TTFB can be impacted by any number of factors—your location, your connection, the data being sent, etc. As such, there are ways to improve TTFB, including using a content delivery network (CDN) on top of origin storage, range requests, and prefetching.

Performance and Content Delivery Networks

A CDN helps speed content delivery by storing content at the edge, meaning faster load times and reduced latency. For high-bandwidth use cases, a CDN can optimize media delivery.

Companies like Kanopy, a media streaming service; Big Cartel, an e-commerce platform; and CloudSpot, a professional photo gallery platform, use a CDN between their origin storage in Backblaze B2 and their end users to great effect. Kanopy offers a library of 25,000+ titles to 45 million patrons worldwide. Latency and poor performance is not an option. “Video needs to have a quick startup time,” Kanopy’s Lead Video Software Engineer, Pierre-Antoine Tible said. “With Backblaze over [our CDN] Cloudflare, we didn’t have any issues.”

For Big Cartel, hosting one million customer sites likewise demands high-speed performance. Big Cartel’s Technical Director, Lee Jensen, noted, “We had no problems with the content served from Backblaze B2. The time to serve files in our 99th percentile, including fully rendering content, was under one second, and that’s our worst case scenario.” The time to serve files in their 75th percentile was under just 200 to 300 milliseconds, and that’s when content needs to be pulled from origin storage in Backblaze B2 when it’s not already cached in their CDN Fastly’s edge servers.

“We had no problems with the content served from Backblaze B2. The time to serve files in our 99th percentile, including fully rendering content, was under one second, and that’s our worst case scenario.”
—Lee Jensen, Technical Director, Big Cartel

Range Requests and Performance

HTTP range requests allow sending only a portion of an HTTP message from a server to a client. Partial requests are useful for large media or downloading files with pause and resume functions, and they’re common for developers who like to concatenate files and store them as big files. For example, if a user wants to skip to a clip of a full video or a specific frame in a video, using range requests means the application doesn’t have to serve the whole file.

Because the Backblaze B2 vault architecture separates files into shards, you get the same performance whether you call the whole file or just part of the file in a range request. Rather than wasting time learning how to optimize performance on a new platform or adjusting your code to comply with frustrating limitations, developers moving over to Backblaze B2 can utilize existing code they’re already invested in.

Prefetching and Performance

Prefetching is a way to “queue up” data before it’s actually required. This improves latency if that data is subsequently requested. When you’re using a CDN in front of your origin storage, this means the user queues up data/files/content in the CDN before someone asks for it.

Video streaming service, Kanopy, uses prefetching with popular videos they expect will see high demand in certain regions. This would violate some cloud storage providers’ terms of service because they egress out more than they store. Because Kanopy gets free egress between their origin store in Backblaze B2 and their CDN Cloudflare, the initial download cost for prefetching is $0. (Backblaze also has partnerships with other CDN providers like Fastly and bunny.net to offer zero egress.) The partnership means Kanopy doesn’t have to worry about running up egress charges, and they’re empowered to use prefetching to optimize their infrastructure.

Other Metrics to Consider When Assessing Cloud Performance

In addition to TTFB, there are a number of other metrics to consider when it comes to assessing cloud performance, including availability, the provider’s service level agreements (SLAs), and durability.

Availability measures the percentage of time the data is available to be accessed. All data occasionally becomes unavailable due to regular operating procedures like system maintenance. But, obviously data availability is very important when you’re serving content around the globe 24/7. Backblaze B2, for example, commits to a 99.9% uptime with no cold delays. Commitments like uptime are usually outlined in a cloud provider’s SLA—an agreement that lists the performance metrics the cloud provider agrees to provide.

Durability measures how healthy your data is. Object storage providers express data durability as an annual percentage in nines, as in two nines before the decimal point and as many nines as warranted after the decimal point. For example, 11 nines of durability is expressed as 99.999999999%. What this means is that the storage vendor is promising that your data will remain intact while it is under their care without losing any more than 0.000000001% of your data in a year (in the case of 11 nines annual durability).

Ready to Get Started?

Understanding the different performance metrics that might impact your data can help when you’re evaluating cloud storage providers. Ready to get started with Backblaze B2? We offer the first 10GB free.

The post Cloud Performance and When It Matters appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Kari Rivas original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-build-the-right-tech-stack-for-your-msp/

As a managed service provider (MSP) or IT consultant, your bottom line depends on having the right tools at the right prices to maintain your margins while still providing the resources and functionality your clients need. And you’ve likely seen the resources and functionality your clients need changing over the past few years towards an increased focus on cybersecurity and disaster recovery.

More and more companies are hiring remotely, which means increased security risks, ransomware attacks on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have increased, and severe natural disasters are threatening on-premises office technology. Having the right tech stack for your MSP demonstrates to current and potential clients that they can trust you to safeguard their valuable data and systems against the threats of today and tomorrow.

Level up your value proposition with insights on building a competitive “right-sized” tech stack at our upcoming webinar, “The Essential MSP Tech Stack,” on Tuesday, February 15th at 1 p.m. CST/2 p.m. EST.

Read on to get a preview of what will be covered during the webinar.

The Top Considerations for an Essential MSP Tech Stack

SMBs outsource their IT to MSPs and consultants because they don’t have the time, knowledge, or resources to shop around for the right tech solution for themselves. They may not even know what criteria they should be using to evaluate solutions, and this can lead to them shopping around among MSPs based on price alone.

Sourcing solutions with a lower cost to you means you can price your services more competitively and better attract customers. But pricing is just one of the considerations you should make when purchasing software. Have you also thought about scalability, and whether your tech stack can grow with you as your client base grows? Or what kinds of support options your software provider has available?

Pricing is important, yes, but there are several other factors by which you should judge your tech stack options, including features, automation options, and integrations, which will be covered in more detail during the webinar.

Right-sizing Your MSP Tech Stack

To develop your MSP offering, you’ll also want to think about what MSP services are most in demand in your area and what solutions you can offer the most efficiently and cost-effectively. It’s not “essential” to offer everything. The right tech stack is the one that brings you the most clients at the greatest profitability.

You may even want to do some research on the other MSPs in your geographic area. Is there something you can offer that they do not? Play to your strengths—what technical areas do you know the best?

As you start to develop your offering, consider the following areas of managed IT services and how they might help you attract clients:

Backup and Cloud Storage for MSPs

When it comes to managed backup and cloud storage, Backblaze and our partner, MSP360, have you covered. Backblaze provides easy and affordable server and workstation backup, and our integration with MSP360 provides a seamless experience to back up standalone and multiple servers to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage.

MSPs and IT organizations with multiple servers can manage all of their machines from one, centralized, web-based admin console. Backblaze B2 backups are “set it and forget it” after the initial setup. Data is kept in hot storage and available immediately when needed. And B2 Cloud Storage is extremely affordable at $5/TB per month without any additional fees or tiered pricing structure.

Our integration with MSP360 includes advanced backup protection features like flexible scheduling, compression, encryption, and ransomware protection. We’ve even made it super easy to get started on your own. Just use our online onboarding tool to create both Backblaze B2 and MSP360 accounts at the same time.

Bundling MSP Services to Streamline the Purchase Decision

Consider bundling your services to make it easier for clients to buy from you and understand how you’ll help protect their business. For instance, the joint solution from MSP360 and Backblaze can be bundled as part of a disaster recovery, backup, and storage package. You could also create tiers of services, like a “bronze” level disaster recovery, backup, and storage package; a “silver” level package that includes all of the above plus monitoring, tech management, and installation services; and a “gold” level package that functions essentially like fully outsourced IT.

Non-IT Tools for the MSP Tech Stack

Finally, as you build your MSP, don’t forget that your tech stack may need to include non-IT tools as well. You’ll need a way to oversee business accounting and your books, a way to manage your client relationships, leads, and sales, plus software to manage employees, payroll, and other aspects of general business management.

Ready to Upgrade Your Tech Stack?

Having the right tech stack isn’t a matter of checking all the boxes on a list of software. It’s a strategic decision about what your potential clients will most value, what you’re best equipped to offer, and how you can make a profit. Instead of trying to meet every possible need, ensure that you have the “right-sized” tech stack to service the types of clients you represent without paying extra for bloated software that may go unused. You can often have a healthier business by specializing in just a few areas and attracting the right types of clients, rather than trying to cater to everyone.

Want to learn more? Join our webinar on Tuesday, February 15th at 1 p.m. CST/2 p.m. EST to learn more about how to build the tech stack for your MSP.

The post How to Build the Right Tech Stack for Your MSP appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Amanda Fesunoff original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hybrid-cloud-and-modern-workflows-for-media-teams/

By any metric, the demands on media workflows are growing at an unprecedented rate. A Coughlin Associates Report of media and entertainment professionals predicts that overall cloud storage capacity for media and entertainment is expected to grow over 13.8 times between 2020 and 2026 (101.1EB to 140EB). It also predicts that, by the next decade, total video captured for a high-end digital production could be hundreds of petabytes, approaching one exabyte.

Businesses in the media and entertainment industry—from creative teams to production houses to agencies—must manage larger and larger stores of data and streamline production workflows that interact with those stores of data. Optimizing data-heavy workflows provides you with time and cost savings you can reinvest to prioritize the creative work that drives your business.

In today’s post, we’ll examine the trends shaping the media storage landscape, walk through each step of the media workflow, and provide strategies and tactics for reducing friction at each step along the way. Read on to learn how to modernize your media workflow to meet today’s data-heavy demands.

Media Technology Trends and Impacts on Media Workflows

Technology is driving changes in media workflows. The media landscape of today looks very different than it did even a few short years ago. If you’re responsible for managing data and workflows for a creative team, understanding the broad trends in the media landscape can help you prepare to optimize your workflows and future-proof your data infrastructure. Here are a few key trends we see driving change across the media storage landscape.

Trend 1: Increased Demand for VR and Higher Resolution 4K and 8K Video Is Driving Workflow Modernization

While VR has been somewhat slow to build steam, demand for VR experiences has grown as the technology evolved. The industry as a whole is growing at a fast pace, with the global VR market size projected to increase from less than $5 billion in 2021 to more than $12 billion by 2024. Today, demands for stereoscopic VR, and VR in general, have increased storage requirements as data sets grow exponentially. Similarly, higher resolution demands more from media workflows, including more storage space, greater standards for compression, and higher performance hardware. All of these files also need to be constantly available and secure. As such, media workflows increasingly value scalable storage, as having to wait for additional storage may cause delays in project momentum/delivery.

Trend 2: Archiving and Content Preservation Needs Are Driving Storage Growth

While the need to digitally convert data from traditional film and tape has slowed, the enormous demand for digital storage for archived content continues to grow. According to the Coughlin Report, more than 174 exabytes of new digital storage will be used for archiving and content conversion and preservation by 2024.

Just as your storage needs for active projects continues to grow as file sizes continue to expand, expect to invest in storage for archival purposes as production continues apace. Furthermore, if you have content conversion or preservation needs, plan for storage needs to house digital copies. The plus side of this surge in archival and preservation demand is that the storage market will continue to be competitive, giving you plenty of choices at competitive rates.

Trend 3: Cloud Adoption Is Playing an Important Role in Enabling Collaboration Across Teams and Geographies

A study by Mesa of nearly 700 decision-makers and managers from media and entertainment companies found that they expect that 50% of their workforce will continue to work remotely. Accessing resources remotely used to be a challenge mired by latency issues, restrictions on file size, and subpar collaboration tools, but cloud adoption has eased these issues and will continue to do so as companies increasingly embrace long-term remote collaboration.

As you think about future-proofing your architecture, one factor to consider is cost, but also designing an architecture that enables your existing workflows to function remotely. A cloud storage provider with predictable pricing can address cost considerations and make cloud adoption even more of a no-brainer. And media workflows can adopt cloud-native solutions or integrate existing on-premises infrastructure with the cloud without additional hardware purchasing and maintenance. The result is that time and money that would have been spent on hardware can be reinvested into adopting new technology, meeting customers’ needs, and differentiating from competitors.

Steps in the Modern Media Workflow

With an understanding of these overarching trends, media and entertainment professionals can evaluate and analyze their workflow to meet future demands. To illustrate that, we’ll walk through an example cloud storage setup within a media workflow, including:

1. Ingest to Local Storage.
2. Video Editing Software.
3. Media Asset Managers.
4. Archive.
5. Backup.
6. Transcoding Software.
7. Content Delivery.
8. Cloud Storage.

Ingest to Local Storage

Creatives doing work in progress need high performance, local access storage such as NAS, SANs, etc. These are often backed up to cloud storage to have an off-site version of the current projects. Some examples include Synology and QNAP NAS devices as well as the OWC Jellyfish system. With Synology, you can use their Cloud Sync application to sync your files directly to your cloud bucket. Synology also offers many built-in integrations to various cloud providers. For QNAP, you can use QNAP Hybrid Backup Sync to archive or back up your content to your cloud account. OWC Jellyfish is optimized for video production workflows, and the Jellyfish lineup is embraced by video production teams for on-prem storage.

Video Editing Software

Video editing software is used to edit, modify, generate, or manipulate a video or movie file. Backblaze has a number of tools we support depending on your workflow. Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer are two examples of film and video editing software. They are used to create videos, television shows, films, and commercials.

Media Asset Managers

A media asset manager, or MAM, is software used to add metadata, manage content, store media in a hybrid cloud, and share media. Examples of MAMs include iconik, eMAM, EditShare, and Archiware. You can store your media files directly to the cloud from these and other media asset managers, enabling monetization and quicker content delivery of older content.

Archive

An archive often consists of completed projects and infrequently-used assets that are stored away to keep primary production storage capacities under control. Examples of archive tools include LTO tape, external hard drives, servers, and cloud providers.

Backup

A backup is often used with new projects where raw media files are ingested into their systems and then backed up in case of accidental deletion so that they can be easily restored. Examples include LTO tape, external hard drives, servers, and cloud providers.

Transcoding Software

Transcoding software converts encoded digital files into an alternative digital format so that it can be viewed on the widest possible range of devices.

Content Delivery

Content delivery networks (CDNs) enable easy distribution of your content to customers. Examples include Fastly and Cloudflare. CDNs store content on edge servers closer to end users, speeding performance and reducing latency.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is integrated with all of the above tools, making it easy to store high resolution, native files for backup, active archives, primary storage, and origin stores. The media workflow tools have easy access to the stored content in the cloud via their user interface. Storing content in the cloud allows teams to easily collaborate, share, reuse, and distribute content. Cloud storage is also emerging as the storage of choice for workflows that use cloud-based MAMs.

The Benefits of Using a Hybrid Cloud Model for Media Workflows

Because media teams need both fast access and scalable storage, many adopt a hybrid cloud storage strategy. A hybrid cloud strategy combines a private cloud with a public cloud. For most media teams, the private cloud is typically hosted on on-premises infrastructure, but can be hosted by a third party. The key difference between a private and public cloud is that the infrastructure, hardware, and software for a private cloud are maintained on a private network used exclusively by your business or organization.

In a hybrid cloud workflow, media teams have fast, on-premises storage for active projects combined with the scalability of a public cloud to accommodate the large amounts of data media teams generate. Looking specifically at the cloud storage functions above, it is important to keep your local storage lean and mean so that it is fast and operating at peak performance for your creative team. This achieves two things. First, you don’t have to invest more in local storage which can be expensive and time consuming to maintain. And second, you can offload older projects to the cloud while maintaining easy accessibility.

According to a survey of IT decision makers who adopted a hybrid cloud approach: 26% of them said faster innovation was the most important benefit their business gained. 25% said it allowed them to have faster responses to their customers. 22% said it provided their business with better collaboration. Benefits of a hybrid cloud approach for media teams include:

1. Affordability: Cloud storage can be lower cost versus expanding your own physical infrastructure.
2. Accessibility: A hybrid cloud provides increased collaboration for a remote workforce.
3. Scalability: Cloud scalability provides ease and control with scaling up or down.
4. Innovation: Media teams have an increased ability to quickly test and launch new products or projects, when not bogged down by physical infrastructure.
5. Data Protection & Security: Media teams benefit from reduced downtime and can bounce back quicker from events, failures, or disasters.
6. Flexibility: Hybrid solutions allow media teams to maintain control of sensitive or frequently used data on-premises while providing the flexibility to scale in the cloud.

Want to learn more about hybrid clouds? Download our free e-book, “Optimizing Media Workflows in the Cloud,” today.

The post Hybrid Cloud and Modern Workflows for Media Teams appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Jeremy Milk original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/lets-be-honest-retention-minimums-are-delete-penalties/

People often think of “retention” as a good thing when it comes to cloud and object storage—after all, the point of storing data is to retain it. But retention’s only a good thing when you actually want to retain data—that nuance is sometimes hidden from people, and yes, I say hidden intentionally.

A number of cloud storage providers from big to small are doing their best to hide the darker side of retention—retention minimums. They loudly promote attractive storage tier rates while making little mention of their data retention minimums that allow them to charge those rates for as many as 90 or 180 days after bytes uploaded have been deleted.

We don’t believe in charging you for data you deleted. Today, we’re explaining more about what that means for you, and highlighting some real-world stories of discovering these hidden fees.

Our Stance on Retention Minimums aka Delete Penalties

First, let’s call retention minimums what they really are: delete penalties. We stand against delete penalties. We don’t charge them. We see them as the enemy of every use case in which data is intentionally replaced or deprecated in hours, days, or weeks instead of months. Delete penalties go against agility and flexibility. We also think it’s despicable when a vendor shouts about how they don’t charge fees for things like data egress, while quietly padding their topline with hidden retention penalties.

At Backblaze, our pricing has nothing to hide. When you delete data, you stop paying for it within the hour. End of story.

Retention Minimums: The Fine Print or the Finer Print

Obviously, cloud providers aren’t going to advertise that they charge you for deleted data, but some are more transparent than others. AWS with its S3 Glacier services, for example, at least acknowledges these products are meant primarily for longer term storage. They disclose minimum retention details in the footnotes on their pricing page—the information is less prominent, but to their credit, it’s disclosed on the page. It may seem unusual for us to praise AWS, but by comparison, they’re actually a lesser evil in this regard.

Others? Let’s just say you really need a magnifying glass to dig through the fine print. Their minimum retention requirements are buried deep in their terms of service or FAQs. Unless you have an eagle eye and/or click through many pages of their website, you’re left to find out just how much you’re paying for deleted data when you get your bill. What’s more, the disappointment and disillusionment from budget surprises like that can turn people off from the many gains they can derive from leveraging cloud storage.

Delete Penalties in the Wild: Testimonials

Here’s what we’ve heard from folks who experienced delete penalties for themselves…

“Initially, I was worried about egress, so I went with [name redacted]. But I was misled. My egress was nominal. Meanwhile, I found that one-third or more of my bill was for backup I had deleted. That’s not how I want to do business.”
—MSP Leader

“I looked at an up-and-coming provider called [name redacted] because their whole thing is they’ve got great prices. I soured on them when I realized that they don’t really tell you that they bill you for a minimum of 90 days of object duration. There’s little I need to store for 90 days for my application. All of my cursory research seemed okay, and the pricing calculator on the pricing page made no mention of any of this. I’m not a fan of using a vendor that buries something that important.”
—Brian, Software Developer

“We got burned by [name redacted] with regard to their deletion and how we do our backups. I deleted data off their system, and they’re billing me for data they’re not storing? And what’s more, they’re irritated by the fact that their hard drives had to delete data? I don’t understand that level of…I’m not even going to say the word, but it’s just stupid.”
—Joe Valentine, Software Engineer II, Webjogger

Delete the Delete Penalties

To be sure, compared to the high costs of on-premises infrastructure, cloud storage delete penalties may go unnoticed or be characterized as a cost of saving money. But that’s exactly what companies who levy these penalties want you to think. Don’t let them misrepresent their true costs or mislead you. It’s not right. It’s not aligned with their messaging. It’s not what you deserve. And it’s not going to support your business growth especially when fees add up fast for many terabytes and petabytes.

It’s time to delete the delete penalties. Full stop.

If you’ve been hit with unexpected penalties after deleting data, share your experience below with the broader community or reach out to us to learn more about how you can eliminate them.

The post Let’s Be Honest—Retention Minimums Are Delete Penalties appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Natasha Rabinov original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/announcing-kubernetes-backup-and-ransomware-protection-via-kasten-and-backblaze/

According to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s annual survey, Kubernetes use in production has increased 300% since 2016 to 83% of respondents. There’s no doubt that a fundamental shift has taken place over the past few years—applications are being deployed in container environments and those deployments are being managed by Kubernetes.

But customers that are deploying Kubernetes environments need a new tool to protect all of that data. Purpose-built for Kubernetes, Kasten by Veeam is that tool.

Now, through a new partnership, joint Kasten and Backblaze customers will be able to name Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage as a storage destination where they can store and protect copies of their applications affordably.

This partnership enables developers to:

• Back up and restore production stateful Kubernetes applications.
• Safeguard application data from ransomware encryption with Object Lock for immutability.
• Support regulatory compliance and corporate disaster recovery mandates.

“Kubernetes containers are the standard for many organizations building, deploying, and scaling applications with portability and efficiency. Backblaze and Kasten together offer a compelling solution to support these organizations’ business continuity needs with set-and-forget-it ease and cost effectiveness.”
—Nilay Patel, VP of Sales and Partnerships, Backblaze

The joint solution is fully scalable at enterprise grade. What’s more, organizations only pay for storage used, with no data retention penalties for deleting past backups.

About Kasten

Owned by Veeam, Kasten is an award-winning market leader in Kubernetes backup. Their product was built natively for containers, and the software-only solution runs directly on your cluster within its own namespace.

Together, Kasten and Backblaze provide a simple, seamless integration for shared customers, focusing on ease of use.

“Backup and protection are paramount in a world in which data is everything and cyberattacks continue to rise. The Backblaze-Kasten partnership offers the application protection and disaster recovery support companies seek, with flexibility and freedom to choose their preferred storage partner.”
—Gaurav Rishi, VP of Product, Kasten by Veeam

How to Get Started With Backblaze B2 + Kasten

After creating your Backblaze B2 account, check out our Quickstart Guide for Kasten K10 and Backblaze B2 to create a Kasten namespace in your cluster and configure Backblaze B2 as a storage destination.

Customers can test the Kasten solution for free with clusters made up of 10 nodes or less. And Backblaze covers the first 10GB stored.

Data Protection That Scales With You

Kubernetes was built to provide scalability, giving businesses the flexibility to manage and optimize resources. Through this partnership, customers now have storage that matches that flexibility in Backblaze B2. With Backblaze, customers are able to scale their application backups as their applications scale.

Interested in learning more? Join us for a webinar on February 2, 2022 at 10 a.m. PST to discover how to add seamless ransomware protection to your Kubernetes environments—stay tuned for more details and a link to register. Or, if you are ready to future-proof your application, click here to get started today.

The post Announcing Kubernetes Backup and Ransomware Protection via Kasten and Backblaze appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/five-ways-to-use-object-lock-immutability/

If you want to understand how Object Lock immutability works, think of a valuable necklace sitting behind a window. If someone really wants that necklace, they will find a way to break that window. Reinforce the glass, add a silent alarm, none of it will change the fact that thieves can find a way.

With Object Lock immutability, there is no window. Instead, picture a fully realistic holographic representation of the necklace. You can still see your necklace, you can still enjoy its sparkle, but nothing anyone does to that hologram can alter the actual physical necklace.

Object Lock immutability works in a similar fashion, at least metaphorically speaking. (Object Lock doesn’t create a facsimile, per se, but it does protect objects from being manipulated, copied, encrypted, changed, or deleted for as long as the lock is set.) And it protects something far more valuable than some trinket: It protects your data.

In this post, learn about five different ways you can use Object Lock as well as some tips for using Object Lock effectively.

What Is Object Lock Immutability?

In functional programming, immutability is a characteristic of an object whose state cannot be changed after it has been created. Conversely, mutable objects are variable. But what does all that mean when it comes to Object Lock? By creating a model in which an individual object (i.e., a unit of data that contains all of the bytes that constitute what you would typically think of as a “file”) remains static and unchangeable, Object Lock immutability prevents important files from being deleted, corrupted, or otherwise damaged. Your files can, however, be freely accessed, giving you free rein to view important documents. This Write Once, Read Many (WORM) model is the cornerstone of Object Lock immutability.

Those of us above a certain age may recall the days when data was regularly transferred via floppy disc. Back in those dark days of dial-up, there was a simple plastic switch on each floppy disc that marked the disc as read-only or read-and-write. If the switch was flipped, the data on the disc could be read or transferred at will, but it was a one-way street. You were unable to alter the original data stored on the disc.

Object Lock Immutability serves the same function as that plastic switch, only it operates entirely within the code of your storage software. You can view, share, and open files at will. But the contents of that file cannot be changed.

Object Lock Immutability Use Cases

With the right approach, Object Lock immutability can be used to solve a few problems, including:

• Aiding recovery from ransomware attacks.
• Migrating from an LTO tape system.
• Supporting records retention requirements.
• Protecting your company during lawsuits.
• Enhancing version control during software development.

Aid Recovery From Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware attacks are a major challenge for many businesses. In our research on the true cost of ransomware, we found that the cost of these incidents can exceed $1 million! That’s the bad news.

The good news is advanced planning can make it easier to recover from attacks. Specifically, preserving data backups with Object Lock is a helpful way to speed up your recovery from ransomware attacks. For example, you might decide to make daily backups of your most critical files and retain those backups for three months. In this case, you would have plenty of options for how to recover from an attack.

To achieve consistent security protection, we recommend integrating Object Lock into your IT security policy. For further guidance on how to do this, see our post, “How to Add Object Lock to Your IT Security Policy.”

Migrating From an LTO Tape System

Until recently, the most common way to protect data from being overwritten, corrupted, or deleted was by creating an “air gap” by way of LTO tapes. Under this system, sensitive files would be backed up to a tape and then physically removed from the drive. This created an effective shield of literal, physical air around the data by removing it entirely from your network, but it came at a cost.

Tape systems require an up-front investment and require ongoing maintenance, management, and eventual replacement. With Object Lock immutability as part of your cloud backup solution, the entire process of creating an air gap happens virtually, saving time and money while accomplishing the same goal. You can calculate the savings between cloud storage and tape yourself.

Support Records Retention Requirements

Your company probably has a variety of records retention requirements to fulfill. For example, the finance department likely has to retain records in case you are audited by tax authorities. In addition, your contracts with customers may expect you to retain records for a specific project for a set period. Once you determine which records need to be retained, Object Lock can preserve the records so they cannot be modified or deleted for the required duration. Object Lock means accidental deletion of records is much less likely.

Protect the Company’s Interests During Lawsuits

Lawsuits and disputes are a fact of life in today’s environment, but there are steps you can take to reduce the impact and expense associated with them.

By applying Object Lock, your company will be better able to navigate the challenges of a lawsuit. You can focus on the substance of the dispute rather than spending endless hours answering questions about your data integrity.

Enhance Version Control During Software Development

New versions of files are created on a nearly constant basis during software development projects. Some software projects release new versions every day or every week. With many different software versions on your plate, there is a risk your team might get disorganized. Now, imagine if a new release of your software ends up having a serious security or performance flaw. In that case, rolling back to the previous version may save a tremendous amount of time and energy.

By using Object Lock on previous versions of your software, you can have confidence in your ability to access previous versions. For companies that produce custom software for clients, enhancing version control through Object Lock may be helpful for other reasons. In the event of a problem, a client might ask for access to earlier versions of the software. Preserving earlier versions of your software development with Object Lock makes it easier to respond to such requests.

Tips for Using Object Lock Immutability Effectively

As with any technology, achieving optimal results from Object Lock requires a thoughtful, guided approach. From a technical standpoint, there is no limit to how much data you can protect with Object Lock. However, excessive use of Object Lock may consume a significant amount of your data storage resources, negating any time and cost savings you’ve achieved.

Altering the amount of time an object is placed in Object Lock is just one way to ensure you’re getting the most out of this technology. Others include:

• Reviewing Older Object Lock Files: You might find that you rarely need to access Object Lock-protected data that is older than six months. Obviously, this amount of time will vary greatly depending on your needs, but it’s important to make sure you’re not spending resources protecting files that don’t need the extra protection. Depending on what you find, you may want to adjust guidance to employees accordingly.
• Ensuring Consistency: To achieve more consistent usage of Object Lock immutability, start by clarifying your expectations in a company policy. This could be as simple as a checklist document explaining when and how to use Object Lock or an appendix to your IT security policy. In addition, ask managers to periodically review (e.g., every six months) how Object Lock is used in their departments and provide feedback to employees as needed.

As a concept, Object Lock immutability is fairly easy to understand and even easier to use in protecting your vital data from incursion, corruption or deletion. Beyond simply protecting valuable data from cyber threats, it can create a clear timeline in case of litigation or simplify complicated development projects. By understanding how this tool works and how best to use it, you can secure your data, increase your efficiency, and improve the operation of your cloud storage.

The post Five Ways to Use Object Lock Immutability appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-is-the-public-cloud/

The wonderful thing about technology is that it’s always changing. This, of course, is also the frustrating thing about technology. We think we understand it, or at least have a basic grasp of it, and then the rules get completely rewritten. What seemed simple and straightforward is suddenly a morass of technical terms and jargon. Such is the case with cloud concepts.

If you’re looking for a data storage solution, it’s sometimes helpful to revisit the fundamentals to ensure you find the solution that works best for you. Today, we’re sharing a few helpful guidelines to cut through any confusion around the public cloud, including how it’s different from a private cloud, when it makes sense to use one or both, and how to go about choosing a cloud provider.

What Is the Public Cloud?

Essentially, public cloud storage operates like a self-storage unit, only one that holds your personal files instead of old lamps that you’re sure you’re going to donate or part with in a garage sale someday. The difference being (apart, obviously, from cloud storage being virtual) that cloud storage lets you pay as you go, so you only pay for the amount of storage you need.

In researching public cloud storage, you may come across other data storage terms such as “private cloud” and “on-premises.” We’ll briefly define these terms to help you navigate the options available to you.

• Private cloud. As the name implies, a private cloud is similar to a public cloud, but specifically designed for a single user or business. Think of a private cloud like one of those restaurant booths that’s permanently reserved for a VIP—no other customer can use that space. As a result, private cloud services can be more expensive than public clouds. Private clouds are typically, but not always, on-premises. Some companies choose to outsource their private cloud infrastructure to a data center, but the key defining factor is that the servers and network are dedicated to one company or “tenant” rather than shared with other tenants as in a public cloud.
• On-premises data storage. Before cloud services were created, many organizations stored their data in corporate data centers built on location or “on-premises.” Since these facilities are owned and controlled by the company that built them, they offer a very high level of security. On-premises data storage is also sometimes referred to as a private cloud, but private clouds don’t necessarily have to be on-premises anymore—they can be anywhere as long as they’re dedicated to one tenant.

There are several advantages to using a public cloud service for data storage. You generally only pay for the storage you use. Unlike an on-premises data center, there are usually no significant up-front costs to purchase hardware and plan for ongoing administration. In addition, a public cloud data storage solution does not take up physical space in your office.

Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud: When Does It Make Sense to Use Them?

To help you decide between public vs. private cloud data storage, let’s recap the critical differences first. A public cloud service is usually open to any customer, while a private cloud is dedicated to select users. In addition, a private cloud service is usually operated on-premises.

There are three significant differences between private cloud and public cloud.

• Tenancy. A private cloud is dedicated to one tenant whereas a public cloud is open to many tenants. In a public cloud, tenants share the same physical hardware resources as other tenants, and their individual instances are virtually separated so that one tenant can’t access another’s data.
• Approach to security. A private cloud is dedicated exclusively to your needs. You own and manage it. As such, you have more control over the physical security of your servers as well as your private networks. In a public cloud, you trust the provider to handle some of the security for you.
• Affordability. A public cloud service is defined to achieve mass economies of scale in order to offer affordable prices. A private cloud requires up-front investment in hardware and networking equipment and ongoing maintenance and upgrade costs.

Ultimately, it comes down to the solution that best fits your company’s needs for privacy and security balanced against your budgetary constraints. The benefit of a private cloud is more important in some industries than others. For example, in instances where there might be national security concerns—like national defense or government contractors—or a greater need for privacy like healthcare or financial services, a firm may opt to use a private cloud service located on-site for certain sensitive data.

Sometimes, however, your needs will extend beyond simply using either a private or a public cloud service. When that happens, you need a hybrid cloud.

Hybrid Cloud: When Does It Make Sense to Use Both?

As we noted, depending on your data storage needs and industry, you may decide to use a mix of public cloud and private cloud providers, otherwise known as a hybrid cloud. For example, in data-heavy industries like media and entertainment, a hybrid cloud approach offers a powerful solution. Using a hybrid solution means staff have fast access to large files for day-to-day work on a private, on-premises cloud, combined with scalable, affordable storage in a public cloud for archives and remote collaboration. Similarly, in industries that handle sensitive data, a private cloud could be used to have more control over security, while less sensitive data could be stored in a more affordable public cloud.

Using a combination of public cloud and private cloud data storage gives you the best of both worlds. Private, on-premises storage provides greater ease of access to files and enhanced security, but with the financial trade-off of fixed costs for maintenance and IT assistance. Public storage is more affordable and makes sharing files with outside vendors, subcontractors, and clients simpler.

How to Compare Public Cloud Providers

If you’ve decided a public cloud or a hybrid cloud approach is right for you, your next step is choosing a cloud provider as your trusted partner. As you evaluate different cloud providers, it is helpful to use some standard criteria to measure each provider. Use the following points of comparison to inform your selection process.

• Ease of use. As with most technology, the more customization you need, the less user-friendly your cloud storage is generally going to be. The end goal of cloud storage is to make your life easier, and if you’re having to stack new skill sets just to make it work, then you’ve officially moved beyond “easy.”
• Customer support. The insufferable thing about tech headaches is that they have no respect for your schedule. As such, it’s important to check the support package offered by the provider. How easy is it to reach an actual person, not a bot or autoresponder? Will they be able to respond to issues that may arise from your particular setup? The wrong answer could be costly.
• Data egress. Check the costs and speed of data egress if and when you need to pull all of your data out from the cloud provider. You don’t want to feel locked into a cloud provider because they charge high data transfer fees.
• Pricing tiers. There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to cloud storage, so make sure you’re not throwing money out the window. Or, into the cloud. Double check that you won’t get locked into a price structure that charges for storage you don’t need. Keep an eye out for things like minimum retention requirements where you’re essentially charged for deleted data for a period of time after you delete it.
• Security. Lost or compromised data goes far beyond a mere inconvenience. In the worst-case scenario, it can represent a serious security breach and possible legal issue. Some cloud providers offer more security features than others. For example, check if the provider offers Object Lock, a feature that prevents data from being modified, copied, encrypted, changed, or deleted during a set period of time. If a bad actor somehow got access to your account, they wouldn’t be able to tamper with your data. (Even you can’t modify it before the lock period ends!)

Assess Public Cloud Storage for Your Organization

Cloud computing has had a transformative impact on the way we do business. Between the cost savings and the flexibility it gives us in handling our data, it can play a tremendous role in your company’s growth. Now that you’ve learned the basics of public cloud data storage and how it can potentially impact your business, you can make a more informed decision about how you set up your infrastructure and manage your company’s important data.

Are you using a private cloud, a public cloud, or some combination of the two? Let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear how it’s going.

The post What Is the Public Cloud? appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/getting-the-most-out-of-your-nas/

Who has the original copy of that report on their machine? Which hard drive has the footage from that shoot a few years ago? Are those photos from our vacation on the laptop, the external hard drive, or the sync service? If you’ve ever asked yourself a question like these, you have felt the pain of digital scatter. In today’s world, with as many devices as we use, it’s almost unavoidable.

Almost. When you start to feel the pain of digital scatter, either at work or at home, take it as a sign that it’s time to look into upgrading your data storage systems. One of the best ways to do that is investing in a NAS device.

As you start exploring more sophisticated data storage options than juggling external drives or managing sync services, understanding what you can do with a NAS system can help your decision making. This post explains what NAS is and all the different ways you can use NAS to supercharge your business or home office setup.

What Is NAS?

Network attached storage, or NAS, is a computer connected to a network that provides file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. It’s primarily used to expand storage capacity and enable file sharing across an organization or across devices in a home.

The primary strength of NAS is how simple it is to set up and deploy. NAS volumes appear to the user as network mounted volumes. The files to be served are typically contained on one or more hard drives in the system, often arranged in a RAID scheme. Generally, the more drive bays available within the NAS, the larger and more flexible storage options you have. The device itself is a network node—much like computers and other TCP/IP devices, all of which maintain their own IP address—and the NAS file service uses the Ethernet network to send and receive files.

NAS devices offer an easy way for multiple users in diverse locations to access data, which is valuable when users are collaborating on projects or sharing information. NAS provides good access controls and security to support collaboration, while also enabling someone who is not an IT professional to administer and manage access to the data via an onboard web server. It also offers good fundamental data resiliency through the use of redundant data structures—often RAID—making multiple drives appear like a single, large volume that can tolerate failure of a few of its individual drives.

Getting the Most Out of Your NAS: NAS Use Cases

The first two NAS use cases are fairly straightforward. They are exactly what NAS was built for:

1. File storage and file sharing: NAS is ideal for centralizing data storage for your home or business and making files available to multiple users. The primary benefits of a NAS system are the added storage capacity and file sharing compared to relying on workstations and hard drives.
2. Local backups and data protection: NAS can serve as a storage repository for local backups of machines on your network. Most NAS systems have built-in software where you can configure automatic backups, including what you back up and when. Furthermore, the RAID configuration in a NAS system ensures that the data you store can survive the failure of one or more of its hard drives. Hard drives fail. NAS helps to make that statement of fact less scary.

But that’s not all NAS can do. With large storage capacity and a whole host of add-ons, NAS offers a lot of versatility. Here are a few additional use cases that you can take advantage of.

Host Business Applications on NAS

Small to medium-sized businesses find NAS useful for running shared business applications like customer relationship management software, human resources management software, messaging, and even office suites. Compared to expensive, server-based versions of these applications, companies can install and run open-source versions quickly and easily on NAS. Some NAS devices may have these features built in or available on a proprietary app store.

Create a Private Cloud With NAS

Most NAS devices give you the ability to access your data over the public internet in addition to accessing it through your private network, essentially functioning as a cloud service. If a NAS device manufacturer doesn’t already have a cloud application built in, there are a number of open-source cloud applications like Nextcloud or ownCloud.

Use NAS to Run Virtual Machines

Virtualization software providers, like VMware, support running their products on NAS. With proper configuration, including potentially adding RAM to your device, you can easily spin up virtual machines using NAS.

Develop and Test Applications on NAS

Many NAS devices offer developer packages, including apps for different programming languages and tools like Docker and Git Server. With these add-ons, you can turn your NAS into your own private lab for developing and testing applications before moving them to a server for production.

Use NAS as a File Server

Although a NAS device is usually not designed to be a general-purpose server (it’s underpowered compared to a file server and comes with less robust access management capabilities), NAS vendors and third parties are increasingly offering other software to provide server-like functionality. For home use or for a small team, higher-end NAS devices can function as a file server.

Manage Security Cameras on NAS

Apps like Synology’s Surveillance Station allow you to set up a security camera system yourself using IP cameras rather than paying for a more expensive enterprise or home system. With a large storage capacity, NAS is perfect for storing large amounts of video footage.

Stream Media With NAS

NAS is a great place to store large media files, and apps like Plex allow you to stream directly to a device or smart TV in your home or business. You can consolidate video or audio files from your devices into one place and stream them anywhere.

Ready to Get Started With NAS?

Understanding the many use cases can help you see where NAS might fit into your business or make file sharing at home easier. There are many ways to make your NAS device work for you and ensure you get the most out of it in the process.

Do you have more questions about shopping for or buying a NAS? Check out our Complete NAS Guide. It provides comprehensive information on NAS and what it can do for your business, how to evaluate and purchase a NAS system, and how to deploy your NAS.

The post Getting the Most Out of Your NAS appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.