Calligo Deploys S3 Compatible Storage-as-a-Service Solution

Calligo is an innovative, global cloud service provider (CSP) offering a range of cloud-based managed services to its clients, covering all aspects of infrastructure, applications, and communications. The firm’s offerings span data privacy and security, application performance guarantees, commercial flexibility, and a personalised support service. Its global span includes data centres in Jersey, Guernsey, Bermuda, Singapore, Zurich, and Geneva.

S3-Compatible Storage-as-a-Service

Calligo has seen growing demand for storage-as-a-service (STaaS) offerings, and specifically sought to deploy an S3 compatible object storage solution. Many of Calligo’s clients had applications and other third party services that supported the S3 API, and would benefit from an S3-compatible storage offering.

Interoperability, scalability, and multitenancy drove the decision. After reviewing the competing solutions, Calligo selected Cloudian. As a service provider, Calligo knew that compatibility was critical and that clients would expect the S3 service to seamlessly support all of their S3-enabled applications. Tests have shown that Cloudian’s 100% native S3 API offers the highest S3 interoperability of all competing solutions.

Tom Hacquoil, Chief Digital Officer at Calligo, describes this as “a major decision point” in the selection of Cloudian technology. “Many cloud-based applications and services support S3 APIs,” he adds, “so the fact that Cloudian is 100% native S3 has allowed us to speed up the expansion of additional services, including a new storage-as-a-service offering. We looked at other S3-based products, but Cloudian’s HyperStore came out on top. We can also use it to perform snapshot backups of our SolidFire LUNs.”

Second, Calligo knew that requirements would grow over time and needed a flexible solution to accommodate this. Cloudian HyperStore offers a simple, fluid scaling model that allows capacity and storage bandwidth to grow as needed. Furthermore, Cloudian’s shared-nothing architecture means that no node could be a single point of failure, thus ensuring uptime.

Third, Calligo required a multi-tenant environment, since the system would be shared among multiple independent users. Cloudian’s multi-tenanted storage platform — which segregates customers, users, and applications within a single physical platform — would greatly simplify the process of deploying and managing storage. The granular control of data, which is managed by buckets, would allow Calligo to configure storage policies by customer.

A Successful Deployment

Calligo deployed a fault tolerant, disaster resilient service made up of Cloudian HyperStore appliances, with three nodes running across two data centers. Implementing Cloudian HyperStore technology enabled Calligo to provide cost effective cloud storage while ensuring smooth interoperability and integration with its other cloud services. Tom continued, “Cloudian’s 100% native S3 API has proven interoperable with all S3-enabled applications, which gives us and our customers peace of mind. Not only that, but we’ve had a very successful relationship working with the Cloudian team, who have helped this deployment to run smoothly.”

The Future with Cloudian

Looking to the future, Calligo is developing a strategy for data placement within its cloud offerings and plans to use Cloudian HyperStore to cover areas such as backup and archive. Calligo has future plans to roll out Cloudian HyperStore into a global network of over 20 nodes. “S3 is rapidly becoming a technology ‘must-have’ for everyone operating in the cloud industry,” says Hacquoil. “For an organisation like Calligo, S3 API compatibility is imperative so we can quickly develop and launch new high-value services to our clients. Cloudian will be a very important part of our technology strategy into the foreseeable future.”

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Customer Requirements
  • Amazon S3 compatibility to ensure interoperability
  • Transparent capacity and performance scalability to accommodate growth
  • Multi-tenancy for security and SLA delivery
Cloudian Solution

“The fact that Cloudian is fully native S3 has allowed us to speed up the expansion of additional services. We looked at other S3-based products, but Cloudian’s HyperStore came out on top.” Tom Hacquoil Chief Digital Officer, Calligo