High-Performance Block Storage for Your Most Demanding Workloads
Cloud block storage provides the performance characteristics required for databases, transactional applications, and high-IOPS workloads — but storage type selection, IOPS provisioning, and cost optimization require careful evaluation to avoid paying for performance you don't need or starving workloads that do.
What RLM Delivers on Cloud Block Storage
Block storage misconfigurations are one of the most common sources of cloud cost waste and application performance problems. RLM advises on the right storage type, correct IOPS and throughput provisioning, and the optimization strategies that reduce cost without impacting performance.
How We Approach Cloud Block Storage
Our cloud advisory runs from discovery and market evaluation through vendor selection and post-deployment optimization — scoped to the Cloud Block Storage decision in front of you.
Storage Performance Requirements Analysis
We analyze your workload storage requirements — IOPS, throughput, latency, and capacity — by application tier, identifying the performance requirements that must be met and the headroom that's being over-provisioned.
Storage Type Selection
GP2 vs. GP3, io1/io2 vs. ST1/SC1 on AWS; Premium SSD vs. Ultra Disk vs. Standard SSD on Azure; pd-ssd vs. pd-balanced vs. pd-extreme on GCP — each storage type has different performance, cost, and use case fit. We recommend the right type for each workload.
IOPS & Throughput Optimization
Overprovisioned IOPS is expensive; underprovisioned IOPS causes application performance problems. We right-size storage provisioning based on actual workload metrics — not vendor defaults or DBA estimates.
Snapshot & Data Protection Design
Block storage snapshots provide point-in-time recovery but accumulate cost without lifecycle management. We design the snapshot policy, retention schedule, and cross-region copy strategy that meets your RTO/RPO requirements cost-effectively.
Cloud Block Storage Evaluation Criteria
The questions below are the ones that decide whether a Cloud Block Storage investment pays back — and the ones vendors are least eager to answer.
IOPS vs. Storage Cost Trade-off
io2/io2 Block Express provides highest IOPS but at significant cost premium. Evaluate whether GP3 (with independent IOPS provisioning) meets your requirements at lower cost before committing to provisioned IOPS volumes.
Throughput vs. IOPS Requirements
Database workloads are typically IOPS-bound; analytics and log processing are throughput-bound. Evaluate which storage metric is the binding constraint for each workload type.
Snapshot Accumulation Cost
Block storage snapshots are typically billed for changed blocks. Evaluate snapshot retention policies and the cumulative snapshot cost against your actual recovery requirements.
Multi-Attach Support
Some workloads (clustered databases, shared filesystems) require multiple instances to mount the same block device simultaneously. Evaluate multi-attach support for your specific clustering requirements.
Encryption & Compliance
Block storage encryption at rest is table stakes. Evaluate customer-managed key support (KMS integration) and audit trail capabilities for your compliance requirements.
Performance Consistency
IOPS and throughput numbers are maximums, not guarantees. Evaluate performance consistency — variance in latency, throughput under concurrent load — for latency-sensitive applications like databases.
"RLM helped us rationalize our multi-cloud spend and identify over $1.2M in annual savings. Their approach was methodical and unbiased — exactly what we needed."
Every engagement is measured against the baseline we establish at the start — not against a vendor’s projection.
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 Move on Cloud Block Storage?
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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