10 Misconceptions About Moving Big Data to the Cloud

While the cloud is ideal for big data storage and processing, misconceptions about moving big data to the cloud are hindering companies from doing so.

This might be true if you are using a method like File Transfer Protocol (FTP). But more modern file transfer protocols have been designed specifically to handle large files and unstructured data sets. This large file transfer technology was originally used to move huge video files during the production of film and television, but as demand has grown it has become available as SaaS solutions both for person-to-person transfers and large-scale cloud ingest of any kind of large data sets. There are no file size limits in this solution, and therefore no data is too large to move.

Traditional methods for moving data over the Internet such as FTP and HTTP are based on TCP (Transfer Control Protocol). For the vast majority of data movement, TCP works well, but for large files that need to travel any substantial distance, latency becomes a major barrier to efficient and reliable transfers. It not only takes too long, but large file transfers with TCP-based protocols are prone to data loss and failure. One of the core developments of modern acceleration technology is its ability to eliminate latency and data loss, resulting in reliably fast transfers, up to 200 times faster than TCP/FTP.

A common misconception held by even technically minded people is that increasing bandwidth will always speed up data transfer. And it’s no wonder; network providers are notorious for claiming that it will. But remember that both bandwidth and latency impact network throughput, and in many cases it’s latency that dominates the resulting transfer speed. In these situations, buying additional bandwidth won’t make things faster. Newer SaaS transfer solutions, on the other hand, have to ability to greatly reduce latency so that you can fully utilize any available bandwidth.

One of the most common ways to transfer large amounts of data to the cloud is to set up a big dedicated pipe, which does get expensive. Dedicated connectivity is costly, takes time to deploy, and you pay for it even when not in use. SaaS large file transfer solutions for cloud ingest offer a fully managed service, eliminating upfront infrastructure investment and ongoing management costs. Additionally, the SaaS payload-based pricing model is very cost-effective because you only pay for what you’ve moved.

It’s true that significant time and technical expertise are required to set up and manage traditional software running on virtual machine instances in the cloud—and that’s how some software for big data cloud ingest needs to be deployed. SaaS solutions, on the other hand, are much easier to get started and are fully managed by the SaaS vendor. Your IT team will not have to worry about managing complex installations or take time out for upgrades. And, because SaaS automatically scales according to data load, they will not have to spin up additional capacity as your operations scale up and down.

Investing in both understanding and implementing software that can move any amount of data to the cloud for any purpose can have immediate and long-term benefits. Cloud-based storage and services are integral to the future of modern data centers, and not just because data amounts are growing so exponentially; the power of cloud computing for gaining insight into big data in specific ways for specific industries is only just beginning. A reliable data ingest solution sets a company up to take advantage of emerging cloud technologies.

The major cloud vendors such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google each offer means to transfer data into their particular cloud environments. But those methods are either based in TCP or include fixed circuit infrastructures, with the limitations mentioned in previous slides. To better serve their customers with big data projects, cloud vendors partner with companies that specialize in SaaS large file transfer technology. And as an added benefit to the user, because these SaaS solutions integrate with several major cloud vendors, a single subscription gives customers the flexibility to easily manage and switch between different cloud environments.

Many companies’ first approach to moving data into the cloud involves transferring everything to a central data center and moving it to the cloud from there. However, this is a difficult task, requiring duplicate transfers that are tedious to manage and can create network bottlenecks. And, unless the central data center is located next to one of the cloud vendors, the challenge of moving large amounts of data will still exist. A better solution is to take advantage of the distributed nature of the cloud. A SaaS cloud ingest solution gives each location direct access to your cloud vendor’s closest data center, eliminating repeat sends and increasing efficiency on the internal network.

If you’ve researched the different methods for transferring data into the cloud offered by cloud vendors, it can seem like a task for a developer or engineer. One of the major benefits of the SaaS model is the ease of use it can provide for end users. Unlike on-premises software that is often necessarily complex in order to accommodate the infrastructure of many different customers, SaaS developers can focus on a standard unified architecture. This reduces costs and allows for far less complex usability.

Many companies understandably fear moving their data off onsite servers. But the numerous recent enterprise hacks have brought one truth to light: Security has to involve layers of protection, and not every on-premises system has that. Cloud vendors like Amazon and Microsoft implement security best practices and continuous monitoring, with a team of security experts that outmatch what most companies can afford. Additionally, SaaS large file transfer solutions offer additional layers of security on top of cloud vendor’s, encrypting data both in transit and at rest.