What is Shared Cloud Storage? – Benefits & Challenges

Many organizations feel hampered by their on-premises storage solutions and look to the cloud for the answer. Shared cloud storage provides greater flexibility and often costs less than on-premises infrastructure, but there are some challenges to overcome if you want to use these solutions effectively. This article explains how shared cloud storage works, the benefits of this storage model, and how to avoid common pitfalls.

What is Shared Cloud Storage?

Shared cloud storage is a method of storing data from multiple customers on the same shared infrastructure. That does not mean that your cloud data isn’t private, just that it doesn’t reside on its own private storage hardware. Shared cloud storage is delivered as a virtualized service decoupled from the underlying hardware infrastructure. Each customer’s data is stored in its own logical pool, which keeps it separate from everyone else’s data to ensure privacy while allowing providers to distribute data across multiple servers in multiple locations.

Generally speaking, when someone says “cloud storage,” they’re talking about shared cloud storage from a public cloud provider. By comparison, private cloud storage is the term for storing data on dedicated, private cloud hardware.

The Challenges of Shared Cloud Storage

While there are many advantages to using shared storage in the cloud, there are some challenges to be aware of, including:

Lack of Control

When you move your data to the public cloud, you lose control over things like physical security, operating system patches, and network optimization. That makes it crucial to choose a trusted shared cloud storage provider. Before agreeing to migrate your data, you need to review their security certifications and service level agreements. In addition, you should shore up the cloud security measures you do have control over, such as authentication, access control policies, and firewalls.

Human Error

Misconfiguration of cloud security settings is a leading cause of data breaches. Often, these mistakes are due to a lack of training and experience. Your IT staff must be given the time and resources needed to learn how to configure your shared cloud storage and safely add integrations and APIs. Automation is also a key tool in reducing human error, so you may want to consider automatic configuration management and vulnerability testing solutions to bridge the skills gap.

Performance Degradation

Cloud storage resources themselves are often very fast. However, you may run into performance issues if you need to use that data with on-premises solutions such as EDA (electronic design automation) software. That’s why moving these applications to the same public cloud where your data resides is often beneficial. For example, Synopsys Cloud delivers cloud-native EDA tools integrated with Microsoft Azure’s public cloud, so you get chip design capabilities and shared cloud storage all in one SaaS platform.