NAS Solutions Gain Favour Among Indian SMEs Over Hyperscalers
Recently, Google Cloud accidentally deleted the private cloud accounts worth $125 billion, along with the backups, of the Australian pension fund UniSuper. Luckily, UniSuper had backups with another vendor. Incidents like this underpin the importance of backups and also storing data locally on premise. Companies like Synology Solutions, NetGear, Seagate, and Western Digital provide comprehensive network-attached storage (NAS) solutions. These solutions help in data recovery and provide robust backup capabilities against threats like accidental deletion and viruses. NAS is a file-level storage device that allows data storage and retrieval from a centralised location over a network using standard file-sharing protocols. Key benefits of NAS include data centralisation, remote and easy accessibility, OS/platform independence, built-in data protection, and private cloud deployment capabilities. “In large-scale enterprise deployments, data volumes often grow significantly, necessitating storage systems with robust scalability to accommodate business growth. Furthermore, the importance of simplicity in expansion and management cannot be overstated,” Russell Chen, country manager of Synology, SAARC, told AIM. Once the challenge of managing extensive data volumes is addressed, the focus shifts to ‘storing data efficiently’. This entails two vital aspects – storage efficiency and collaborative effectiveness. “Enterprises not only require a place to store their data but also an efficient solution to access and utilise it,” Chen added. Taiwan-based Synology, which is one of the leading NAS Solutions providers in the world, has expanded extensively in India since the pandemic. Chen also revealed that between 2021 and 2023, Synology achieved a remarkable accomplishment, doubling its revenue and establishing dominance in the NAS market in India, particularly within the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) segments. Growing NAS market in India Lately, many SMEs and large enterprises have started adopting NAS solutions because they provide a hybrid solution. This means Synology offers its own cloud solutions, which SMEs can leverage. Going for a hyperscale solution could prove expensive and less tailored to the specific needs of some SMEs. “It means customers can choose to go for on-premise NAS or the cloud. Due to compliance challenges, many enterprises can’t completely migrate the entire data to the cloud. Here, NAS solutions prove beneficial,” Chen said. Secondly, unlike the cloud, SMEs are not bound to pay a recurring licence fee. They can store archival or cold data on the premises, significantly saving costs. “We have a client that needs to store their user’s email for at least three years, but they are using Microsoft 365. This means if the employee leaves the organisation, they need to pay for a licence for three years just to store their email. We provide a very cost effective alternative,” Chen added. Catering to the country’s demand, Synology launched its latest flagship product, the HD6500, in April this year. It has an impressive storage capacity of up to 4.8 petabytes. According to Chen, the HD6500 serves not only as a central repository for data but also as a backup pool for large enterprises. “This model is particularly well-suited for data volume-intensive industries such as media, entertainment, and VFX, offering unparalleled storage capabilities to meet the demands of modern businesses,” Chen said. Synology is also seeing demand for its solution from the public sector and the country’s educational and research institutions. “We see great demand in the manufacturing sector, especially from companies that are shifting their manufacturing base from China to India. So, when they set up a plant in India, they will need safe and secured storage solutions,” Chen added. In the latter half of 2024, the company also plans to launch a cutting-edge data protection solution. (Synology’s flagship high-density storage server– the HD6500) In India, Synology competes extensively with the likes of QNAP, which is also headquartered in Taiwan and US-based Seagate. There are other companies like HPE and Leveno which provide enterprise-level storage solutions in India. Does NAS Help Avoid Ransomware? Leveraging NAS solutions could help enterprises prevent cyberattacks. According to a study carried out by cybersecurity company Sophos, in India, around 64% of firms reported ransomware attacks this year. Around 65% opted to pay the ransom to recover the data. Synology, too, is positioning its products as a better alternative to the cloud to protect customers’ data. Storing data on-premise with NAS would mean enterprises would have access to their data in case of a cyberattack. Synology has a secure login framework in place to enhance the account security of its operating system. However, NAS solutions are also immune to cyberattacks. In 2021, the company said its devices had been subjected to brute-force attacks. Competitor QNAP has also previously announced that its NAS devices were also being attacked by bad actors. However, over the years, the companies have bolstered their security features. For example, the company has set up the Synology Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), which reacts to product security incidents. “Compared to other NAS brands, no vulnerabilities have been found in Synology’s solutions since 2021,” Chen said. Is AI Driving Demand for NAS? According to Chen, the recent boom in AI is also boosting the demand for NAS solutions. A significant amount of data is being used to train large AI models, and these datasets can range from gigabytes to petabytes in size. NAS solutions offer scalable file storage to accommodate these ever-growing data volumes. “In AI and machine learning, extensive data is utilised to train these models. Consequently, users seek secure, cost-effective storage solutions to manage this large volume of data safely,” Chen said. As AI projects grow, so does the need for storage capacity. NAS systems are scalable, allowing organisations to expand their storage capacity as AI data requirements increase without disrupting operations. In many organisations, AI projects often involve collaboration among researchers, data scientists, and developers who need access to the same datasets. NAS solutions facilitate easy sharing and collaboration by providing centralised storage accessible to multiple users and devices within the organisation.
Unlike cloud, using NAS means companies don’t require to pay a recurring fee to store cold data
Unlike cloud, using NAS means companies don't require to pay a recurring fee to store cold data
["AI data"]
["Go", "machine learning", "AI", "R", "Scala", "Git", "RAG", "Aim", "ViT", "GAN", "AI data"]
["AI", "machine learning", "Aim", "RAG", "R", "Go", "Scala", "Git", "GAN", "ViT"]
I have a keen interest in creative writing and artificial intelligence. As a journalist, I deep dive into the world of technology and analyse how it’s restructuring business models and reshaping society.