DigitalTransformationTalk: Overcoming the challenges of adopting a Storage-as-a-Service solution

On 23 September 2025, Digital Transformation Talk host Kevin Crane was joined by Ayman Husain, Vice President, North America Head of Sales and GTM - Cloud Services, NTT DATA; Jason Bechara, Senior Product Manager, Data Center Warehouse; and Adam Gale, Field CTO for AI and Cyber Security, NetApp
 
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If an organization doesn’t thoroughly prepare for a move to the cloud or has unrealistic expectations about short-term work and long-term results, unwelcome surprises may be on the horizon, ranging from disrupted workflows to user resistance to unexpected expenses. In addition to steps suggested by the article, there is also the issue of data sovereignty as companies increasingly strive to create sovereign cloud platforms. To achieve that, first you must know your data to establish the company’s sovereign data requirements. Data, however, can also expand your attack surface, therefore, securing it is also key to a successful move to the cloud. 

Finding the right cloud storage provider

A shift to Storage-as-a-Service can be done incrementally, starting with backup-as-a-service for storage and disaster recovery. As the business gets more comfortable with cloud storage, it can then go on on to move high-volume, high-transaction workloads to the cloud too. With cloud storage, you can also push data up and down on tiers in line with how the relevance of that data is changing. You also need to ensure the right bandwidth service to be able to do compute-heavy workloads too – otherwise you’ll miss the purpose of cloud data storage. Deduping is also a key step before moving data to the cloud and so is data security– the pipe, for example, where data moves to the cloud must have robust security controls. 

When considering whether there is a business case for migrating to the cloud, factors like accessibility of the data, security of the data pip and the nature of the data (static or dynamic that must be moved around) must be weighed. However, if you opt for cloud storage, it’ll have security and data analytics baked into the service. Behaviour analytics tools are great for detecting anomalies and attempts at stealing company data both in the cloud and on-prem. 

EU regulations even mandate moving around data between different providers. The ease of managing data is also an important requirement when choosing a provider. Vendor lock-in must be avoided. Rather than going for the cheapest provider, find one fit for your data purposes. Without the right integrations, a company ‘s ERP system can be down for months after migration. Governance and compliance, meanwhile, is predicated on organising your data into buckets based on their sensitivity and some other aspects. There are also AI-driven tools that scan through the data storage and tell how often different data have been accessed based on last access records. They can also predict what data users will need next relying on data access patterns. 

You will need your legacy data set-up running while the migration to the cloud is taking place. Leave ample time before you make the cut-off from the old system to the new. This is also the moment when you must address the mistakes that might have been made during migration.  

 

The panel’s advice

• The footprint of cloud storage capacity has considerably decreased in the past decade – what took 10 racks can take now only one thanks to SSD drives and other efficiency-boosting technologies.
• The fact that the price of storing data has come done may be an argument for storing data on-prem.
• Delete the data you no longer need – it’s good for the environment too.
• Don’t assume everything is good – do regular disaster recovery tests and spot checks.
• Get stakeholder buy-in before moving to the cloud. Keep them in the loop regarding progress and potential setbacks.