Wayne Duso (@WayneDuso) GM, File, Hybrid-Edge, Data Transfer and Data Protection from Amazon Web Services joins theCUBE Host Dave Vellante (@dvellante) from AWS Storage Day 2019. #theCUBE #AWSStorageDay https://siliconangle.com/2019/11/25/amazon-opens-a-new-chapter-in-storage-by-integrating-from-the-top-down-awsstorageday/ File gains importance in AWS storage portfolio With most of the world’s data stored in file formats such as Network File Standard, it’s logical for AWS to expand its storage portfolio to address this space, alongside expanding its services for S3, Glacier and EBS. Sure enough, Storage Day 2019 saw the announcement of an expanded portfolio that makes the company much more competitive in the file storage space. “This is a major total addressable market expansion move and signals AWS’ intent to grab more market share by giving customers more functional and broad storage choices,” Vellante said. During AWS Storage Day, Wayne Duso, general manager for file, edge and on-premises presence, data transfer, and data protection businesses at AWS, weighed in on the topic: “All of these services are purpose-built for the type of storage that you need, the programming model that you need for your applications and workloads. Whether it’s object storage with S3 in Glacier, or block storage with EBS, or most recently file service with EFS and FSx file services … you have the tools at your disposal that you need based on your application workload.” Mistakes were made in the early excitement of cloud migration. And it is now commonly accepted that moving lock, stock and barrel into the cloud “just because” is not a good idea. Security issues made the headlines, but they are just one of the many concerns associated with cloud migration. So, why should a company successfully running file services on-prem make the decision to move into the AWS cloud? One reason is simplicity, according to Duso. When a customer chooses to move to the AWS Cloud, Amazon takes care of administration, provisioning and maintenance. “You literally click three or four buttons to create a file system, [and] you no longer have to worry about it ever again,” he stated. Amazon also promises to maintain data in a secure environment. “Security is job number one for us,” Duso stated. “We take care of all the security elements.” Ease of integration is also a major benefit, especially to companies wanting to take advantage of new intelligent technologies, Duso pointed out. The wide range of AWS’ products means that advanced tools for building and deploying machine-learning models, such as AWS SageMaker, can be integrated with file storage services, such as FSx for Lustre and EFS, bringing even more simplicity to the process. “Customers don’t have to worry about storage; they don’t have to worry about sharing; they don’t have to worry about scaling. It’s all there for them,” Duso said. Cloud brings global scale, but data must remain close to the user to avoid issues with availability and latency. AWS addresses this by creating regions where data is available in multiple locations. “Our regions are built to have, at minimum, three availability zones,” Duso explained. “For example, when you stand up a file system with EFS, your file system is automatically distributed, replicated across all three availability zones within that region.” This not only provides low latency but creates a backup in the event of a disaster. Finally, there is platform efficiency. “You should really be bringing those workloads onto a platform like this so that you can spend your time on added value services or applications for your business,” Duso stated. Here’s more insight into AWS’ storage strategy as explained in Duso’s complete interview: