Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Thursday, March 28, 2024

IBM Cloud Object Storage Enhancements Help Companies Better Manage and Access Data 

Nov. 6, 2017 -- Today, companies are looking to the cloud to efficiently and securely store and analyse their data at massive scale. As the foundational data store for the IBM Cloud, IBM Cloud Object Storage is designed to help companies manage exponential data growth, whether they need cloud storage with data protection, archiving for data retention, storage for cloud native applications or a data repository for analytics.

To keep pace with companies’ growing data needs, IBM continues to innovate and enhance its Cloud Object Storage portfolio. Over the past eight months, it delivered new regional and cross regional services, introduced flexible storage class options and launched a new way to physically move massive amounts of data to the cloud so that companies can better store, manage, migrate and access their unstructured data.

Today marks another milestone for IBM Cloud Object Storage. IBM is announcing three new enhancements – an integration with Watson Data Platform services, a more unified user experience with the IBM Cloud and increased security options – to help companies improve agility and economics for big data analytics, achieve new efficiencies and productivity in the cloud and gain even more control over their data security.

IBM Cloud Object Storage now offers a persistent storage layer for Watson Data Platform services, making it more cost-efficient and secure to store analytics data in the IBM Cloud. IBM has integrated IBM Cloud Object Storage with the Watson Data Platform to provide a persistent storage layer for ad hoc analytics, predictive analytics, real-time streaming, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. With this new integration, developers and data scientists can now:

  • Scale their compute and storage resources independently, (with IBM Analytics Engine and IBM Cloud Object Storage), so that they more cost-efficiently meet the dynamic needs of their organization
  • Optimize connectivity to Apache Spark applications with a standard API interface for fast and efficient analysis.
  • Achieve cost-effective, built-in disaster recovery by storing only one geo-dispersed copy of their data.
  • Simplify their data governance with defined access policies and metadata about each data asset via the Watson Data Catalog and Data Refinery.
  • Easily access their data sets and analytics jobs globally, allowing for streamlined workflows and increased collaboration.

Developers can now quickly provision storage, intuitively manage data and accelerate application development in the IBM Cloud. As part of a major upgrade to the IBM Cloud Object Storage public cloud experience, clients can now access IBM Cloud Object Storage as part of an integrated experience within the IBM Cloud portal. The new unified user experience is designed to simplify start up, make it easier to manage and interact with data, accelerate application development and enable easier integration with IBM Cloud services. IBM has introduced its key enhancements that enable developers and IT teams to:

  • Provision an account and storage buckets within minutes, thanks to a new, simplified registration and management process.
  • Manage data with its intuitive object storage management console to create and manage buckets, upload and download objects and view details of service instances, such as endpoints, credentials, storage class and usage metrics.
  • Integrate applications with Cloud Object Storage using prescriptive SDKs for Java, Node.js and Python with support for IBM Cloud’s Identity Access and Management (IAM) permissions.
  • Get started with a free “Lite Plan” option offering up to 25GB of data storage capacity, with no credit card pay wall. Companies can use this option to quickly evaluate Cloud Object Storage to see if it’s the right fit for them.

Companies now have more flexibility and control to meet their specific data security requirements. IBM has enabled customer-driven permission identity control by integrating the Cloud Object Storage service with IBM Identity and Access Manager in the IBM Cloud to give businesses additional control over their data. Companies can now set Cloud Object Storage bucket-level access policies, selectively grant permissions, assign user roles and control the actions that users and applications can perform.

IBM is also enhancing its encryption key options to give companies more control over their data security. In addition to its default encryption option, which automatically encrypts data at rest, customers will soon be able to bring their own encryption keys, retaining complete control of their existing keys while benefiting from its advanced encryption for data at rest.

The new enhancements to IBM Cloud Object Storage announced today are a boost for companies looking to increase efficiencies around advanced analytics, accelerate application development and employ flexible security options for data encryption and access controls in the public cloud.


Source: IBM

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