Tony Stratton, driver of strategic growth in cloud innovation across the Asia-Pacific region
TL;DR: Managing the cost of cloud storage has become one of the most pressing challenges for IT leaders. This blog explores how managed service providers can navigate cloud inflation and rising vendor fees. By adopting object storage with predictable billing, zero egress charges, and built-in immutable security, MSPs can safeguard client budgets and protect their operating margins.
Cloud budgets are under compounding pressure. The Flexera 2026 State of the Cloud Report found that cloud-based AI workloads are driving wasted cloud spend up for the first time in five years, with organisations routinely exceeding cloud budgets by an average of 17%.
For organisations running data-heavy workloads, there is a structural answer to this problem: object-based storage. By separating large, unstructured data volumes from high-performance compute tiers, organisations can stabilise a significant portion of their cloud spend regardless of what happens to global infrastructure pricing.
See more on How ThinkOn delivers object storage for MSPs facing rising storage costs.
Glossary
Object storage: A storage architecture that manages data as discrete objects — each with its own metadata and unique identifier — rather than as a file hierarchy or block structure. It is optimised for large volumes of unstructured data such as backups, logs, archives, and media files.
Object lock (WORM): A data protection mechanism that makes objects immutable for a defined period — they cannot be modified, encrypted, or deleted. WORM stands for Write Once, Read Many.
S3-compatible: Refers to storage systems that implement Amazon S3’s API interface, allowing any backup or application tool built for S3 to connect without reconfiguration.
Egress fees: Charges applied by cloud providers when data is transferred out of their environment — to another provider, to on-premises infrastructure, or to the internet. Major hyperscalers charge between $0.05 and $0.20 per GB for egress.
Immutable backup: A backup copy that is protected by object lock, preventing ransomware, accidental deletion, or malicious insiders from altering or destroying it during the lock period.
How can MSPs minimise cloud storage cost during market inflation?
MSPs can minimise cloud storage cost by avoiding volatile hyperscaler billing structures and choosing predictable, flat-rate object repositories with zero egress charges.
When cloud inflation drives baseline vendor expenditure upward, operational profitability takes an immediate hit. Traditional providers often mask low entry rates with heavy penalties on data retrieval, API requests, and minimum retention periods. Transitioning client workloads to predictable object storage protects recurring revenue streams and eliminates unexpected billing spikes.
What drives up overall expenditure for the most cost effective cloud storage?
Unpredictable data transfer fees, API request charges, and mandatory minimum duration retention penalties drive up monthly storage expenditure across the board.
Many MSPs struggle to accurately forecast client expenses because hyperscalers charge hidden data taxes every time backups are accessed or restored. Furthermore, penalizing clients for deleting data before an arbitrary retention window expires creates unnecessary friction. Eliminating these variable fees ensures that storage overhead remains manageable as client data scales.
Where can MSPs find the most cost effective cloud storage alternatives?
MSPs find the most cost effective cloud storage by partnering with trusted providers offering transparent pricing, predictable capacity models, and free immutability.
As major market alternatives adjust their pay-as-you-go rates upwards, fixed-rate infrastructure provides a vital competitive edge. Providers that bundle essential features—such as Object Lock, WORM versioning, and zero-cost data egress—allow MSPs to deliver high-margin, enterprise-grade backup services without passing price increases down to their customers.
Egress fees. Major hyperscalers charge between $0.05 and $0.20 per GB when data moves out of their environment. For an organisation running 10 TB of monthly data movement — typical for backup restores, analytics, and DR testing — this equates to up to $900 per month in transfer costs alone, before any other charges.
Minimum storage duration fees. Some storage tiers charge for a minimum duration — often 30 to 90 days — even after data has been deleted. This makes accurate budgeting nearly impossible for workloads with variable retention.
API request fees. Reads, writes, lists, and lifecycle operations each carry per-request charges that accumulate rapidly at scale. These are often the least visible line item on a cloud bill.
Currency exposure. US-dollar-denominated billing means Australian organisations absorb AUD/USD exchange rate movements as an unbudgeted cost variable on every invoice.
ThinkOn’s object storage uses unit-based, AUD-denominated pricing with no egress fees and no minimum duration requirements, which directly addresses each of these cost variables for Australian customers.
What defines the best cloud storage for scalable MSP backup architectures?
The best cloud storage combines native S3 compatibility, zero-cost immutability, and extensive enterprise integrations for seamless day-to-day management.
Modern managed backup requires robust security against ransomware without complicated licensing add-ons. Solutions that integrate natively with leading platforms like Veeam and Commvault allow MSPs to deploy secure, immutable data repositories instantly. By pairing deep ecosystem compatibility with predictable financial models, MSPs can scale client storage securely and profitably.
What workloads are best suited to object storage in Australia?
| Workload category | ThinkOn fit |
| Backup & Disaster Recovery | Offload Veeam or Commvault backups to an S3-compatible tier with no egress fees during restores. |
| Long-Term Archiving | Move “cold” data out of expensive primary storage and into a secure, immutable archive. |
| Big Data & AI Lakes | Store massive amounts of unstructured data for analytics without the compute tax of high-performance instances. |
| Media Production & Streaming | High-throughput storage designed for video editing, rendering and content delivery. |
| AI/ML Data Lakes | Fast, parallel access to training datasets and inference data for machine learning models. |
| Analytics & Log Storage | A reliable repository for application, security and observability logs that require frequent queries. |
| Cloud-Native Applications | Backend storage optimised for microservices, web applications and SaaS platforms. |
| Collaboration & File Sharing | A scalable content repository for team workspaces and shared file systems. |
| Healthcare | “Hot” storage for radiology images and clinical data that require immediate accessibility. |
| Financial Data | Low-latency storage for financial records, accounting data and sensitive tax information. |
| Compliance & E-Discovery | Immutable, WORM-protected storage for regulated records and legal-hold requirements. |
| IoT & Telemetry Ingestion | High-volume landing zone for sensor data, device telemetry and edge-computing streams. |
What is Object Lock and how does it protect against ransomware?
Object Lock is a storage feature that makes individual objects immutable for a defined time period. Once locked, an object cannot be modified, overwritten, encrypted, or deleted — by ransomware, a malicious insider, or an administrative error — until the lock period expires.
In a ransomware attack, the objective is often to encrypt or destroy backup copies before triggering the ransom demand. An object-locked repository is structurally immune to this because the lock is enforced at the storage layer, not the operating system or application layer. Even if an attacker obtains full administrative credentials for a backup application, they cannot alter locked objects.
For Australian organisations subject to APRA CPS 234’s requirement to maintain information security capabilities, an immutable, object-locked backup repository is one of the most auditable controls available. It provides a verifiable, tamper-evident record that a clean recovery point exists — regardless of what else may have been compromised.
ThinkOn integrates Object Lock across its object storage platform, enabling organisations to configure immutable retention policies aligned to their regulatory requirements.
How does ThinkOn’s object storage differ from hyperscaler alternatives?
ThinkOn positions its object storage as a cost-certainty infrastructure layer specifically designed for the channel and MSP market.
ThinkOn uses flat-rate, AUD-denominated pricing with no egress fees — which removes two of the three main sources of billing unpredictability in hyperscaler storage (egress and currency). The third, minimum duration fees, is also absent from ThinkOn’s model.
For MSPs managing multiple customer environments, the multi-tenant architecture and partner-aligned pricing model are designed to keep storage costs predictable as the customer base scales.
For Australian enterprise customers, the combination of local data residency, Object Lock, and S3-compatible connectivity (enabling integration with Veeam, Commvault, and other leading backup platforms without reconfiguration) addresses both the cost and compliance sides of the storage decision.
ThinkOn’s all-flash object storage architecture is documented in a published case study with Pure Storage. The case study covers how ThinkOn built a massively parallel object storage environment that eliminates the performance trade-offs historically associated with cloud archiving.
Ready to stop the cloud cost cycle?
Protect your operating margins and eliminate unexpected billing surprises. Discover how ThinkOn helps Australian businesses scale efficiently with transparent pricing and zero egress fees in their cloud storage.
