Network storage has been the go-to for managing business data, especially for data-heavy setups like e-commerce. However, as data needs expand, traditional storage solutions can start to show their limits. Scaling up, managing costs, and keeping data accessible quickly become more challenging, with added complexities and higher costs.
These limitations can slow progress and complicate daily tasks for developers and businesses. This is where a hybrid approach—mixing on-premise and cloud storage—can make a real difference. By using both storage methods, companies can gain more flexibility, better control, and cost savings that match their needs more closely.
We’ll walk through the layers of network storage, discuss the challenges with traditional setups, and show how blending on-premise storage with cloud solutions like Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Cloudinary can help. Salesforce Commerce Cloud, for instance, lets you keep key data local while using cloud resources for critical functions, making for a smarter, hybrid model. By the end, you’ll see how adding Cloudinary’s media tools can boost your storage approach with better performance, reliability, and scaling options.
In this article:
- Different Layers of Network Storage
- The Limitations of Only Using Network Storage
- Shifting to a Cloud Ecommerce Approach
- Integrating Network Storage Solutions with Cloudinary and Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Elevate Your Network Storage
Different Layers of Network Storage
Network storage has evolved, responding to the expanding demands for storage solutions in everything from e-commerce to app development. Let’s look at three primary layers of network storage, each with its strengths and challenges.
- Traditional Network Storage: This setup is on-premise and relies on physical servers. IT teams manage these servers, ensuring security, access, and maintenance. Traditional network storage gives you control over data but demands ongoing resources for scaling, backups, and redundancy. It’s stable yet costly to maintain as data needs grow.
- Cloud-Based Storage Solutions: The storage infrastructure is hosted entirely in the cloud. You aren’t responsible for maintaining physical hardware; a cloud provider handles everything. While it’s cost-effective, cloud-only storage can have latency issues and some limitations in control over security protocols, depending on the provider.
- Hybrid Model: This option combines both on-premise and cloud-based storage. Businesses use local storage for essential or frequently accessed data and shift other workloads to the cloud. It’s flexible, offering local control with cloud scalability, and is commonly used by teams looking to balance cost, security, and access speed.
The Limitations of Only Using Network Storage
While reliable and secure, network storage has specific limitations that can impact your ability to scale, manage costs, and ensure optimal performance.
Scalability
Scaling traditional network storage means adding physical hardware to your environment, which is time-consuming and costly. Each time your business outgrows its storage, you deal with hardware procurement, configuration, and installation. Cloud-based solutions offer instant scalability, but if you’re only using network storage, you’re locked into a resource-heavy scaling process that lacks the agility of cloud alternatives.
Scalability becomes even more critical in e-commerce or applications with unpredictable data requirements like cloud video streaming. Handling spikes in data volume might lead you to over-invest in storage resources to stay supplied, leaving you with underutilized storage when demand drops.
Cost
Only using network storage carries heavy up-front costs. Each server, drive, and backup device contributes to your operational expenses, not to mention the ongoing maintenance and cooling costs for on-site equipment. Unlike cloud-based solutions, which offer pay-as-you-go models, on-premise storage costs are less flexible and more challenging to manage with fluctuating budgets.
Adding redundancy for data protection further increases these costs. If you’re storing critical assets, backups, and high-availability setups become essential, which means additional expenses for each new storage component and system update. While cloud storage also comes with costs, it’s typically a fraction of the investment needed for expanding network storage on-site.
Network Transfer Speeds
A primary challenge with traditional network storage is network transfer speed, especially when dealing with large data transfers. In a physical network setup, speed can be impacted by several variables—network congestion, server response times, and the physical limitations of your infrastructure. Data-intensive applications can lead to significant lag, especially when remote access or collaboration is necessary.
When scaling up, these issues become even more pronounced. For example, an e-commerce platform with thousands of daily visitors must ensure that all product data, images, and media load swiftly to keep the user experience smooth. Any delay in loading times can frustrate users, reduce engagement, and even lead to a drop in conversions. In contrast, cloud-based solutions often provide greater bandwidth flexibility, reducing latency issues and enabling faster data transfers.
Reliability and Redundancy
Network storage requires careful planning to ensure redundancy and prevent data loss in case of failure. Setting up redundancies for on-premise storage involves adding backup systems or duplicate data storage—often a complex, costly, and resource-heavy process. Without redundancy, a hardware failure can lead to data loss, downtime, and compromised business operations, especially in e-commerce.
While some organizations successfully manage redundancy in-house, it’s not always feasible or efficient for growing businesses or fast-paced developer teams. Cloud storage generally offers built-in redundancy across multiple servers and locations, meaning data is better protected against hardware failures. For many, cloud storage ensures that critical business data is secure and accessible, even in case of unexpected disruptions.
Shifting to a Cloud Ecommerce Approach
Adopting a cloud ecommerce approach allows you to balance the strengths of on-premise storage with the flexibility of cloud services, especially for business-critical processes. Solutions like Salesforce Commerce Cloud have emerged as valuable tools, enabling companies to host essential data locally while using the cloud for broader, business-critical functions.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers an integrated platform for managing everything from product catalogs to customer transactions. The platform provides scalability and flexibility, handling high traffic volumes without compromising performance. By using Salesforce Commerce Cloud, your team can control local data storage—storing sensitive customer information or critical backend data on-premise—while relying on Salesforce’s cloud infrastructure to process orders, manage user interactions, and perform real-time analytics.
For example, imagine you’re running an e-commerce site that processes thousands of image and video assets daily. Instead of hosting all these assets on a single network storage setup, you can use Cloudinary’s media management capabilities alongside Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Cloudinary allows you to store and optimize media assets in the cloud, freeing up local storage space and providing end users with a quicker, smoother experience.
This combined approach keeps you agile, with access to the reliability and redundancy of the cloud for front-end operations while maintaining essential data close to your team. It offers developers the best of both worlds: fast, secure access to critical data and the ability to scale and adapt as demands change without the headache of constantly expanding physical storage.
Integrating Network Storage Solutions with Cloudinary and Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Combining on-premise network storage with cloud solutions like Cloudinary and Salesforce Commerce Cloud allows you to leverage each solution’s unique strengths. By integrating these technologies, you achieve a highly adaptable, hybrid storage model designed to meet the evolving needs of modern applications, especially e-commerce.
First, let’s discuss superior control over assets. By keeping sensitive data on local servers, you maintain tighter control over security and compliance protocols. This is essential for e-commerce platforms that handle customer information or proprietary data. Meanwhile, Cloudinary handles the media management layer in the cloud, providing access to robust optimization, transformation, and delivery tools. You retain control over where data resides and how it’s accessed while enhancing how assets are managed and delivered.
Regarding better performance, hybrid storage solutions tend to be the best. Storing frequently accessed or static assets locally can reduce load times and minimize the demand on network bandwidth. For more complex or media-heavy elements, Cloudinary enables faster media delivery and improved quality with minimal effort on your part. This setup results in faster page load times and a great user experience, which is essential for retaining visitors and maximizing engagement.
Another significant advantage of hybrid storage is reliability and security. Cloud providers like Salesforce and Cloudinary offer redundant storage across multiple locations, which helps safeguard against data loss. If a local server fails, your cloud-stored assets remain accessible, ensuring minimal downtime. Security protocols are also easier to manage with this setup: while your local network handles sensitive data under your control, less sensitive assets can be stored in the cloud with robust protections against unauthorized access.
Finally, hybrid solutions scale when you need it. With Cloudinary and Salesforce Commerce Cloud, you can quickly expand storage capacity or handle traffic spikes without modifying your local infrastructure. You don’t have to invest in costly upgrades every time demand grows. Instead, cloud-based assets and media can scale up, efficiently handling increased traffic or seasonal demands. Developers benefit from the ability to allocate resources based on real-time needs, ensuring efficient storage management without overextending local resources.
Elevate Your Network Storage
As digital demands grow, a hybrid approach to network storage, integrating local and cloud resources, becomes viable and essential. Cloudinary and Salesforce Commerce Cloud empower you to blend performance, control, and scalability into a cohesive solution. Developers, especially those working in e-commerce, gain from the flexibility to adapt storage solutions to meet their needs rather than relying on a single, rigid model.
Incorporating Cloudinary’s media optimization and transformation tools with the broader capabilities of Salesforce Commerce Cloud, you’re not just storing data but elevating how assets are managed and delivered. By strategically distributing resources between local and cloud storage, you maintain control over sensitive information, secure data redundancy, and achieve scalability—all while optimizing the user experience.
This balanced, adaptable storage model tackles traditional network storage limitations and future-proofs your application, ensuring it can handle growth without compromising performance or reliability. When you blend Cloudinary and Salesforce Commerce Cloud with your existing setup, you’re building a network storage solution that’s primed to grow with your business and meet the demands of modern, data-driven applications.
