Despite what some people suggest, object storage is not an emerging technology. Data stored as objects have already approached the exabyte scale (1000 petabytes) representing trillions of objects. Companies like Amazon (with S3) provide object storage via their public cloud platform at a massive scale, while object storage can be implemented in the company data center using technology like OpenStack’s Swift or EMC’s Atmos.

When you begin to think about what types of items you should move into object storage, start with the low-hanging fruit. Take a look, for example, at low I/O workloads such as network share, which may be on a NAS device. In this instance, you are limited to the size of the unit. Without an easily expandable option, you are forced to overprovision in order to leave room for future expansion for the users, resulting in underutilization. By moving this workload to an object store, you’re not limited to the amount of space each unit holds. Nodes can be added easily within the object storage paradigm, allowing full use of the disks you purchased.

Regardless of the path you choose, it is important to familiarize yourself with the advantages and limitations of the architecture in order to get the most value for your company.