Posted by Over the past several years, Oracle has expanded into the storage marketplace, mainly by acquiring technologies and storage businesses. The company has assembled a portfolio of storage solutions designed specifically for enterprise backup and archive, and has focused on selling those solutions to large organizations, in particular existing Oracle database customers.
But today, Oracle is shifting to the cloud. Development for its on-premise storage systems and storage management solutions has slowed while the company is guiding customers toward backup and archive workflows that use Oracle Cloud.
Where does that leave your organization? If you’re looking to add or grow on-premise storage to protect and archive big data, you might want to consider alternatives to Oracle. If you’re an existing Oracle storage customer, it might be time for a change.
What should you look for in enterprise data protection and archiving for your big data?
- Open technology
Storage solutions built on open standards—such as the LTO (Linear Tape-Open) standard—provide important advantages over proprietary solutions. Open standard technologies enable you avoid vendor lock-in. You can integrate solutions from multiple vendors, and you can shift from one vendor to another as your needs change without jeopardizing your existing investments.
Several Oracle storage solutions use proprietary technologies. For example, Oracle tape libraries offer T10000D tape drives as well as LTO drives. T10000D drives use a proprietary tape format that has an uncertain future. Sticking with a proprietary tape format could pose serious challenges in the future if support for that format ends and existing proprietary solutions reach the end of their lives.
- A strong technology roadmap
Having clear visibility into a vendor’s plans for its storage solutions is vital for making informed buying decisions. Will your storage vendor continue to develop innovative features and capabilities? Can you expect to receive technical support for as long as you use a solution? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you determine whether you can continue to derive value from a solution in the years to come.
Oracle storage solutions for backup and archive lack a strong roadmap. For example, development of Oracle DIVA content storage management, which is designed to manage large, diverse archives, has been slow since Oracle acquired the technology in 2014. Similarly, updates to Oracle Hierarchical Storage Manager (HSM)—geared for tiered storage management—have been limited to dot releases since 2015.
- Flexibility for multi-tier environments
Data protection and archiving workflows often benefit from multiple storage tiers and technologies. Using a multi-tier environment helps you find the right balance among cost, performance, and data accessibility. You might want to back up your disk-based production storage to a disk or object storage tier for high performance access. But you might decide to use more cost-effective tape for longer-term archiving of big data, or you might want to leverage the flexibility of one or more public cloud providers to address unpredictable storage loads and to take advantage of each provider’s strengths.
Oracle is driving customers toward Oracle Cloud and away from on-premises solutions. This business strategy will leave organizations with fewer options for gaining the performance and accessibility they need to restore backed up or archived data. By focusing on Oracle Cloud to the exclusion of other cloud platforms, Oracle leaves its customers with even fewer options.
Overcome Oracle limitations with Quantum
Quantum storage solutions address many of the limitations of Oracle solutions. For example, Quantum has a deep commitment to open-standard LTO and is one of the three companies that define the LTO tape drive roadmap. Storage and data management are Quantum’s core business and so they are dedicated to continuously developing its storage solutions for data protection and archiving, including Quantum Scalar tape libraries, Quantum Xcellis Scale-out NAS with integrated data management and Quantum Lattus Object storage.
The Quantum StorNext platform provides greater flexibility for supporting multi-tier environments. You can easily integrate disk storage, object storage, tape libraries and cloud storage, and automate data movement among tiers based on your policies. Importantly, you can incorporate services from a full range of cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. No matter which cloud provider you select, you gain the benefits of the cloud without having to change your workflows.
Take a different path
To learn more about why you should consider an alternative to Oracle storage solutions for enterprise data protection and archiving, read the E-book, “Is it the end of the road for your Oracle storage?”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]