As cloud-computing strategies mature, more companies are choosing a hybrid model for data management. Combining private and public cloud with existing on-premises infrastructure is a practical approach, but it introduces a new issue: how to access and move data easily and securely between the various locations.

“The problem that we’re trying to address for customers is how to connect their on-premises infrastructure to the cloud,” said Asa Kalavade (pictured), general manager of hybrid and data transfer services at Amazon Web Services Inc.

Kalavade spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Storage Boston event in Boston, Massachusetts. They discussed how AWS customers are using Storage Gateway and associated services to facilitate movement and accessibility within a hybrid environment. (* Disclosure below.)

Solving the hybrid cloud access and transfer problem

AWS provides customers with a set of hybrid and data transfer services to help connect on-prem and cloud. “We have customers at different stages of their journey to the cloud … but they still need access to the cloud from on-prem,” Kalavade said.

Combining Storage Gateway with data transfer service DataSync is the solution Kalavade recommends. “The broad charter for these services is to enable customers to use AWS Storage from on-premises,” she stated.

Storage Gateway provides unlimited low-latency access to cloud storage from on-premises “so [customers] can run their on-prem workloads but still leverage storage in the cloud,” Kalavade explained.

Adding DataSync enables customers to move data back and forth between on-prem and the cloud “for workloads that involve replication, migration, or ongoing data transfers,” Kalavade added. “So together, Gateway and DataSync help solve the access and transfer problem for customers.”

High availability supports uninterruptible workloads

Tens of thousands of AWS customers are already using Gateway and DataSync for business-critical workloads. Examples include data back-up, archive, and even as cloud-backed storage to replace on-premises storage, according to Kalavade.

Storage Gateway high availability adds the ability to run uninterruptable workloads by offering a highly available Gateway in a VMware environment. Announced during Storage Day 2019, the new feature addresses the needs of VMware customers that run workloads that cannot tolerate downtime, Kalavade explained.

“Workloads can continue running, even if one of the Gateways goes down,” she stated. “If they have a hardware failure, a networking event, or software error, such as the file shares becoming unavailable, the Gateway automatically restarts so the workloads remain uninterrupted.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Storage Boston event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Storage Boston event. Neither AWS Storage, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE