Cloud storage management : evaluating third-party and cloud native solutions across public cloud platforms

Abstract

As part of digital transformation, cloud computing has fundamentally changed how businesses store, handle, and analyse data. Users of cloud services are becoming more and more worried about data management, security, and storage. This thesis investigates the dynamics of cloud storage and storage management within the two major public cloud service providers Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure by making a comprehensive comparison between cloud-native settings and third-party tools for cloud storage management. The study covers data management and security, cost management, and infrastructure monitoring in public cloud environments. It provides a qualitative analysis of cloud-native services and third-party solutions to address both technical and management issues in maintaining multi-cloud and hybrid cloud platforms, while also ensuring compatibility with the needs of the organization that provided the research assignment.

Using hybrid and multi-cloud settings, the task provider organization is moving to a public cloud environment. Interviews with the organization were used to obtain the requirements. Key findings show that third-party tools offer greater flexibility and wider cross-cloud operating compatibility, despite cloud-native products' strong characteristics within their ecosystems. The report demonstrates that to achieve the best possible scalability, performance, and cost-efficiency, in cloud management a hybrid approach that combines the advantages of both native and third-party solutions is essential. Taking important aspects of cloud solutions into account, it offers a comprehensive picture of every strategy. The thesis will assist the organization in changing, removing, or replacing its current tools in the cloud environments.