With 2012 already upon us, the time has come to make resolutions for the New Year. In the world of IT, this means resolving to abandon bad habits, unreliable processes and cumbersome tasks that often get in the way of business priorities. With the emergence of cloud storage as a viable means to address growing data storage needs, IT administrators can abandon storage headaches of years past in favor of better, faster and easier processes for managing data.

Cloud storage, in combination with enterprise-class gateways like CloudArray, offers security, availability, and performance that rivals local storage with no fear of vendor lock-in. Moreover, it makes it possible to fulfill New Year’s IT resolutions that were once considered unattainable. With this in mind, here are 5 resolutions that you can live up to by augmenting existing storage infrastructure with the cloud.

1. Never run out of storage capacity again: Cloud storage provides unlimited, elastic capacity that grows or shrinks with your business needs on a pay-as-you go basis. Not only do you never run out of storage capacity, but more importantly, you can avoid the never-ending cycle of replacing storage arrays that includes complex migrations, costly capital and maintenance expenditures. Even better, on-premise hardware footprint never needs to increase.
2. Kiss tape backup goodbye: While tape may always have a use for long term archives, many businesses can do away with regular daily tape backups by storing backups in the cloud. With cloud storage you can continue using existing backup software and policies without the hassle, unreliability and manual labor of tape.
3. Stop purchasing dedicated hardware for disaster recovery: Nothing depletes an IT budget faster than buying data storage systems in pairs in order to have a second system ready for disaster recovery. Typically, dedicated secondary storage systems are only active during disaster test or disaster recovery. The advantage of cloud is that storage and compute infrastructure is available when you need it on a pay-as-you go basis at a fraction of the cost.
4. Centralize storage management across sites: It’s not easy managing storage in a decentralized environment where every site is a silo with a private storage footprint as there is no easy way to reallocate capacity across sites or cobble a unified disaster recovery strategy. Cloud storage using enterprise-class gateways centralizes storage management across remote offices, offering unlimited, elastic capacity that never requires upgrades/replacements along with built-in centralized disaster recovery to the cloud. Managing multiple sites from a central location is now a reality.
5. Retain access to a broad ecosystem of solutions: Everyone wants an open ecosystem of solutions including cloud providers and solution providers. Whether you are looking for a private cloud solution, a public cloud solution, or a combination of both, an enterprise-class storage gateway offers you options and provides you the opportunity to choose best-of-breed solutions that meet your needs. Alternatively, if you are looking to leverage your existing storage infrastructure as a starting point, enterprise-class storage gateways can help you enjoy the attributes of cloud storage.

You should look closely at the recent advances in cloud storage and enterprise-class gateway technology.  2012 may just be the year to see your “cloudy” resolutions to fruition.

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