Extend Cloud Storage to Your On-Premises Environment Seamlessly
Hybrid cloud storage bridges on-premises infrastructure and cloud storage — using storage gateways, caching appliances, and tiering software to give on-premises applications cloud-scale capacity while maintaining the local performance they require.
What RLM Delivers on Hybrid Cloud Storage
Many enterprises have on-premises applications that can't be migrated but need more capacity than on-premises storage can economically provide. Hybrid storage provides the bridge — cloud scale with on-premises performance.
How We Approach Hybrid Cloud Storage
Every Hybrid Cloud Storage engagement starts with what you have today and ends with something running in production — with independent evaluation in between.
Hybrid Storage Requirements Assessment
We assess the specific use cases driving hybrid storage requirements — NAS tiering to cloud, backup vaulting, file share extension, or application-specific cloud integration — and design the appropriate hybrid approach for each.
Gateway & Caching Platform Evaluation
We evaluate storage gateway platforms — AWS Storage Gateway, Azure StorSimple/File Sync, Nasuni, Panzura, and others — against your on-premises storage environment, application requirements, and cloud target.
Cache Sizing & Data Locality Design
Hybrid storage performance depends on cache hit rates — keeping the active working set on-premises while tiering cold data to cloud. We design the cache sizing and data locality policy that maintains application performance.
WAN Optimization & Bandwidth Planning
Hybrid storage replication consumes WAN bandwidth. We design the WAN optimization strategy and bandwidth allocation that prevents storage replication from impacting other network-dependent applications.
Hybrid Cloud Storage Evaluation Criteria
What follows is the Hybrid Cloud Storage evaluation checklist we actually use — the criteria that predict outcomes rather than demo well.
Cache Hit Rate Performance
Hybrid storage performance depends entirely on cache hit rates for active data. Evaluate cache sizing requirements based on your actual working set size — data that's accessed in a typical business day or week.
Protocol Compatibility
Hybrid storage gateways must present the same protocols (NFS, SMB, iSCSI) that your existing applications use. Evaluate protocol support and the compatibility testing required for your application stack.
WAN Resilience
On-premises applications must remain operational when the WAN link to cloud is degraded or unavailable. Evaluate how the gateway handles WAN interruption and the behavior of cached vs. non-cached data during outages.
Encryption in Flight & at Rest
Data replicating between on-premises and cloud must be encrypted in transit. Evaluate encryption standards, key management, and the compliance certifications relevant to your data classification.
Backup & DR Integration
Hybrid storage should integrate with your broader backup and DR strategy. Evaluate how the gateway's cloud storage integrates with your cloud backup platform and DR recovery procedures.
Cost of the Hybrid Layer
Hybrid storage platforms add cost — hardware or virtual appliances, software licensing, and support — on top of cloud storage costs. Model total hybrid TCO including all components against the cost of on-premises storage expansion.
"Our migration was stalled for months. RLM came in, assessed the gaps, and helped us select a managed services partner that got us across the finish line in 60 days."
No upfront fees, no retainer, and no obligation to act on what we find.
Where This Matters Most
Sector-specific considerations we see repeatedly in cloud and managed services engagements.
A Sample of the Cloud & Managed Services Providers We Evaluate
RLM is vendor neutral. These are among 600+ providers in our evaluation set — inclusion here is not an endorsement, and we are paid by the provider you choose, not by any provider in particular. How that works →
Ready to Get Hybrid Cloud Storage Right?
Start with a no-cost conversation with an RLM cloud advisor — vendor neutral, no agenda, just clarity on the right path forward.
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