Cloud Computing: Replacing Traditional File Servers
The shift towards cloud computing has been significant over the last decade, with organizations increasingly embracing cloud solutions to streamline their IT infrastructure. A traditional file server is a hardware device that serves as a centralized storage point for files and data within an organization. However, maintaining a file server requires a lot of maintenance and resources, making it an inefficient solution in the long run. In this post, we will review the various cloud solutions available for replacing traditional file servers and the questions we should be asking before choosing a cloud-storage solution. In the next blog, we will dive deeper into the pros and cons of each.
First, let's take a look at the cloud storage solutions we can use today.
SharePoint Online:
SharePoint Online is a cloud-based collaboration and document management platform that allows users to create, store, and share content within an organization. It is an ideal solution for organizations that require a collaborative workspace where multiple users can work on documents and projects simultaneously. SharePoint Online offers many features, such as version control, access control, and co-authoring capabilities, making it easy for teams to work together on projects.
OneDrive:
OneDrive is a cloud-based file storage and sharing service offered by Microsoft. It is a great solution for individual users and small teams that require a central location to store and access their files from anywhere. OneDrive offers features such as automatic syncing, file sharing, and version control, making it easy for users to work on files from anywhere and collaborate with others.
Azure Storage Accounts:
Azure Storage Accounts are cloud-based storage solutions that offer a scalable and cost-effective option for storing and managing files and data. They are an ideal solution for organizations that require high levels of storage capacity and performance for their data. Azure Storage Accounts can be used for a variety of purposes, such as backup and recovery, big data analytics, and content distribution.
Azure Files:
Azure Files is a cloud-based file storage service that offers a fully managed solution for storing and sharing files. It is an ideal solution for organizations that require a central location to store and access files that are shared across multiple users and systems. Azure Files offers features such as access control, version control, and automatic syncing, making it easy for teams to collaborate on files and projects.
Traditional File Server on a Azure Virtual Machines
I mention this option as its technically possible. It requires the least amount of effort when it comes to migrating the file server to Azure. However, it does come with increase cost and overhead. For this solution, you are responsible for updating the Operating system, and implementing high availability. This would be considered a “Lift and Shift” solution. The solutions restricts you form taking full advantage of what the cloud has to offer.
What should you consider before choosing?
When choosing a cloud-based file storage solution, it is important to consider the specific needs of your customer's organization. This means you need to understand the data the customer wants to move. For a successful file server migration to any of the cloud-based file storage solutions, a proper analysis should be performed on the content in the file server as well as the customer's requirements.
I recommend addressing the following questions before choosing a cloud-based file storage solution:
How much file storage will be needed?
What type of files will you be migrating?
How frequently will the files be used?
Who will be accessing these files?
From where will the files be accessed?
How quickly does storage increase month by month?
What are the security requirements?
Do we need to meet regulatory requirements?
What are the backup requirements?
Let’s dive into why we should ask these questions and what value can we obtain from asking such questions.
How much file storage will be used?
Knowing the amount of storage needed will help you compare the cloud storage solutions in terms of storage cost. Note that storage cost should not be the only factor in selecting the cloud-storage solutions.
What types of files will you be migrating?
It’s important to identify what type of files will be migrated. Certain cloud-storage solutions are a better fit for specific files.
Common files found in a file server include:
Document files
Media files
Databases
Software Applications
Backups
Archive Files
Documents:
These could include word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other types of files that are commonly used for business or academic purposes.
Media files:
These could include images, videos, audio files, and other multimedia content that may be used for marketing, entertainment, or educational purposes.
These types of files can generally be very large. If these files are found in a file server. I recommend identifying how these files will be used. Depending on how these files will be used it can completely change the cloud storage solution proposed.
For example, if the video and image files are being used by a web application. Then placing this in Azure Storage as blobs and configuring Azure CDN can be a great option. However, we still need to learn more about the web application such as where it is located.
Data files:
These can include structured data files such as customer data, inventory information, or financial records.
It may be tempting to move these into SharePoint Online, or Azure Files. I highly discourage this. There are other services available that will be a better fit for this type of content. Such as, Azure Data Factory or event Dataverse. It all depends on the use case.
Please refer to the following article on further guidance for choosing a data store for this type of content:
Criteria for data store choice - Azure Application Architecture Guide | Microsoft Learn
Software Application:
Some organizations may use file servers to store software applications that are used by multiple users or clients on the network. These types of files would not be appropriate for a cloud-storage solution. Instead, if you would like to distribute software to users leverage other services that can help with this and provide further functionality for example, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) or System Center Configuration Manager.
Backups:
File servers are often used to store backups of important data to protect against data loss due to hardware failure or other issues. If you come across this scenario, this can also lead to an opportunity to propose Azure Backup as a better solution.
Archive files:
These could include older versions of documents, data, and other types of files that may no longer be needed for day-to-day operations but still need to be retained for legal or compliance reasons. If there are archive files, I would recommend checking if these fields are necessary, and if they are, how frequently are they accessed.
This is not an exhaustive list of files you could run into. The important note here is making sure we have a good understanding of what type of content exists in the current file server.
How frequently will these files be accessed?
Depending on the cloud-storage you select the cost per GB can be costly. This is why it’s important to approach a file server migration, not as quick lift-and-shift but rather an opportunity analyze the files and move only what is necessary.
Identifying how frequently files are accessed can help propose a more cost-optimized solution. It’s possible that some of these files may not be needed anymore thus resulting in less overall file storage needed for the cloud-storage solution.
If the files need to be kept for archiving purposes, we can use multiple cloud-storage solutions to reduce costs. For instance, Azure Archive storage can be used for files that need to be kept for long term storage. The files that need to be accessed more frequently can be stored in SharePoint Online, One Drive, or Azure Files depending on the customers scenario.
Who will be accessing these files?
Identifying who will be accessing the files can help you understand how the files are being used. It can also help you understand how to organize the files in the cloud-storage solution you choose. For example, SharePoint may require you to create different SharePoint Teams sites for each department or team.
The who can be:
A single user
A group of users
An application
From where will the files be accessed?
Not only do we need to know who will be accessing the file, we need to know from where are they accessing the file. Answering this question will help with selecting the right cloud-storage and planning the deployment of such a solution.
For example, if these users are spread across the world the solution will need to accommodate that. If users are not very familiar with SharePoint online or OneDrive, then training should be considered.
How quickly does storage increase month by month?
Before migrating from a file server to a cloud-storage solution. We should have a good understanding on how the storage grows. Likely one of the reasons for adopting a new cloud storage solution is to accommodate the increased need for storage. Having and understanding the rate of which the file storage is increasing will help with selecting the correct cloud-storage solution.
Some of the storage solutions have a cost related to transactions and even have limitations related to IOPS. The rate of which files change can have a direct impact on this.
What are the security requirements?
This question is broad to help initiate the conversation on security. This will give you an opportunity to learn more about what protection is needed for the customers content:
- File permission support
- File encryption
- Data loss prevention
- Regulatory Compliance
Do we need to meet any regulatory requirements?
This question can have an impact on the cloud storage solution that will be used. It will also require you to enable additional features or configurations necessary to be compliant with the regulatory requirements.
What are the backup requirements?
Understanding what the backup requirements are for the customer can help you select the appropriate cloud-storage solution. As previously mentioned, some of the cloud-storage solutions have built in backup and recovery services. For those that don’t have built-in backup solutions such as SharePoint Online. Third party solutions are still available.
Conclusion:
In this first blog, we reviewed several cloud storage solutions, and we also discussed several probing questions to help you gather valuable information that will, in turn, help you make a better decision when selecting the right cloud storage solution for your customer's scenario.
In the next blog, we will dive deeper into the differences between the cloud storage solutions. We will compare the common use cases and the pros and cons of each.
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If you have a specific file server migration scenario you need help with, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. Contact us here or send us an email at info@celestetek.com.
