Global giants like Amazon and Google have made it easier and cheaper to store huge amounts of data in the cloud. Such is their dominance, now, anyone in the cloud storage business must offer services at similar prices.

However, cost per-GB isn’t the endall, because some local businesses prefer to keep their data onshore. With Revera Vault, FishServe gets the best of both worlds – global cloud capability and pricing from a high-performing local cloud. Local cloud storage at global cloud prices – good if you can get it FishServe sizes up cloud storage for emerging online business model.

When Wellington-based commercial fisheries service provider FishServe switched to online service delivery, storage loomed large. They couldn’t afford to lose data. On this front, FishServe experienced the grim possibility when the 2014 Wellington earthquake temporarily closed the company’s office and cut access to its computer room and backup system. Nervous of a repeat, FishServe collocated enterprise IT at a Revera Homeland data centre in Trentham and trialled a cloud backup service provided by a local ISP. Everything ran smoothly, though the backup system was expensive – especially the bandwidth. Surely they could pay less?

FishServe wanted

• New Zealand cloud storage for daily backups
• S3 compatibility
• Per-GB/month pricing on a par with public cloud storage
• Controls to marry bandwidth availability with incremental and full backups
• No hidden costs

Revera Vault – unlimited in-country cloud storage for super-sized data volumes.
“Vault ticked all the boxes,” said FishServe IT operations manager Jonathan Brown. “The S3 connector worked for our backup tools, the throughput was good and, the big kicker, Vault was one third of the price of the incumbent.” At just $0.06 per GB/month, Vault’s object-based cloud storage scales from gigabytes to exabytes, even zettabytes. FishServe only pays for the storage they use, setup is free, and extracting data doesn’t cost a bean. Deep in Revera’s data centre, FishServe’s Veeam backup and availability software points to a Vault target. Company production systems are backed up incrementally each day (approximately 1.5 TB), with a full weekly backup conducted every Friday.

FishServe experienced

Great price: It’s hard to argue with $0.06 per GB/month. Vault is a third of the price of FishServe’s previous backup provider and on a par with Amazon S3.

No hidden costs: Extracting data from Vault is free, which Mr Brown said made it easier to calculate costs before jumping in. “Offshore providers can be a bit tricky,” he said.

Easy to use: Vault’s compatibility with Amazon’s S3 connector supports quick integration with FishServe’s data management systems. A cloud gateway regulates bandwidth dedicated to backup windows.

Good reporting: Reporting available through Revera’s services portal CloudCreator keeps FishServe in the picture and links to other Revera services.

“Vault ticked all the boxes.” – FishServe IT operation