Object Storage Use Cases: From Backups to AI Workloads

Object Storage is a form of data storage that organizes information into individual units or ‘objects’, each of which contains data, customizable metadata, and a unique identifier—making it easy to locate. 

While ‘newer’ in comparison with traditional storage systems, object storage is far from niche. In fact, for a range of reasons, it's now fundamental to modern data ecosystems. 

In this guide, we’ll explain exactly why object storage has become so popular—and explore real-world object storage use cases for a range of different applications, from business resilience, to scalability, analytics, and AI. 

Key Points 

• An explosion in unstructured data growth, ransomware threats, multi-location businesses, and AI workloads is driving the need for scale, security, and cost-efficiency—making object storage essential. 
• Object storage offers scalable, secure, and cost-effective storage, making it perfect for a wide range of use cases and specific vertical applications—including healthcare, finance, manufacturing, entertainment, and government services.
• Object First delivers purpose-built object storage for Veeam users featuring Absolute Immutability—enabling ransomware-proof backups that scale seamlessly while eliminating storage complexity and costly hardware refreshes.  

What Makes Object Storage So Useful Today? 

A range of reasons have driven widespread adoption of object storage. 

The first is an explosion in unstructured data. Unstructured data is any data that does not fit into a traditional database—essentially almost any digital interaction—from documents, to images, video, audio and more.  

Object storage is perfect for storing unstructured data thanks to its flat architecture which allows near-limitless scaling; custom metadata labelling individual objects also makes it far easier to retrieve specific data. 

The use of object storage has also been fuelled by an escalation in ransomware attacks. The high availability and durability of object storage ensures that data remains intact even if hardware fails. What’s more, the fundamental design of object storage is based on a Write Once, Read Many (WORM) protocol, which can easily be made immutable with tools like S3 Object Lock. 

A growing need for multi-location infrastructure also contributes to the popularity of object storage. Whether it’s to facilitate remote working or large organizations simply storing critical data across different locations, object storage systems can easily distribute and replicate data across different sites—from storage nodes to data centres, and even entirely different regions—making it easy to share data seamlessly and collaborate on joint files from anywhere with an internet connection.

The final reason for increased object storage adoption is the boom in artificial intelligence (AI). Object storage is fully compatible with most commonly used AI tools, and the ‘big data’ used to feed and train AI exists as large quantities of unstructured data, best managed using object storage. The massive scaling capabilities of object storage also make it perfect for huge—constantly growing—training data sets. 

To summarise, object storage allows businesses to store data in a way that addresses issues of scale, security, and cost efficiency all at once. 

Object Storage Use Cases 

The following is a list of common use cases for object storage: 

1. Ransomware-Proof Backups 

With the risk of ransomware attacks continuing to rise, ransomware-proof backups are an essential tool for any business. Object storage is well-suited for this purpose, as it can leverage WORM protocols to enforce immutability.  

For example, the Object First appliance uses S3 Object Lock to implement a WORM model, ensuring backup data is absolutely immutable and cannot be deleted, altered, or overwritten, strengthening resilience against ransomware and ensuring rapid recovery in case of an attack. 

2. Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity  

Erasure coding and data verification mechanisms make object storage exceptionally durable, while excellent multi-site replication capabilities make it easy to copy data across different locations.  

Combined with almost infinite scalability and minimal performance degradation, object storage offers rapid recovery, no single point of failure, and business continuity. 

3. Industry-Specific Use Cases   

Object storage’s unique characteristics make it particularly suitable for specific industry use-cases: 

• Healthcare: Strict compliance regulations like HIPAA and GDPR make maintaining healthcare data security of the utmost importance for healthcare organizations. The durability of object storage—and the ease with which it can be made ransomware proof—ensures that files like patient records, imaging data, and research datasets all remain secure and guarantees strict compliance with relevant regulation.  
• Media & Entertainment: The almost limitless scalability of object storage and its ability to distribute and replicate data make it the perfect fit for organizations in the media and entertainment industry, allowing them to store and deliver very large file sizes like high-resolution video, audio, and graphics efficiently at scale.
• Finance: Businesses can archive audit trails, transaction logs, and regulatory reports safely and immutably thanks to the durability and safety of object storage. Customizable metadata also simplifies managing large data sets—particularly useful in ensuring documents are stored correctly for auditing and deleted in a timely manner when appropriate.
• Manufacturing/IoT: Object storage enables effective backup for manufacturing data, allowing organizations to efficiently manage enormous amounts of data with minimal performance degradation, from sensor readings, to production logs, and predictive maintenance datasets. Multi-site operations also benefit from easy data replication. 
• Government/Public Sector: Object storage supports secure, long-term archiving of documents, records, and citizen data while maintaining compliance and durability. Rapid recovery capabilities mean minimal downtime for essential services in the event of a cyberattack or other incident, while extensive scalability makes storage cost-effective for organizations operating under tight budget scrutiny. 

4. Data Lakes, Analytics & AI/ML Training Data  

Because of its significant scalability and cost-efficiency, there are numerous object storage AI use cases. Organizations can build petabyte-scale data lakes for AI/ML training without prohibitive costs—tiered storage keeps active training datasets instantly accessible while archiving historical data cheaply.  

Object storage handles diverse unstructured data formats (images, video, sensor data, logs) natively, while metadata enables rapid dataset retrieval regardless of scale, allowing data science teams to focus on insights rather than storage management. 

5. Logs, Security Telemetry & Compliance Audit Trails  

Logs must be stored immutably for years to meet compliance needs, breach investigations, and SIEM workflows. Tiered storage helps here, too, solving retention bloat for SOC teams by enabling them to retain all essential audit data while only keeping high-priority data immediately accessible. 

6. Enterprise Unstructured Data Repositories  

Object storage provides a scalable, cost-effective repository for catch-all content like employee files, research documents, project assets, and archives. It's a practical solution for consolidating enterprise data that needs long-term retention without premium storage costs. 

7. Software Distribution, Static Assets & Developer Artifacts  

Object storage simplifies software distribution by delivering updates and application files directly via web protocols without complex infrastructure. 

Development teams can centralize build outputs and shared resources in scalable repositories that grow with their needs, while automatic versioning tracks releases and enables easy rollbacks. It efficiently distributes software patches, updates, and static content to users globally at lower cost than traditional file servers. 

8. Future-Proof Scalable Storage for Growing Data  

Object storage grows seamlessly alongside your business, offering scalable storage that adapts to increasing volumes of unstructured data without performance degradation or architectural overhauls.  

Inherently flexible design means object storage can handle evolving enterprise needs, ensuring storage infrastructure never becomes a growth constraint. 

Object First: Simply Resilient Object Storage for Veeam 

Businesses today are struggling with fragmented storage that can't handle massive data growth—leaving backup data vulnerable to ransomware and often forcing costly hardware refreshes. Traditional architectures continue to create silos that prevent organization-wide insights, and, as compliance requirements tighten, IT teams are spending more time managing infrastructure than driving innovation. 

Object storage is the answer, providing scalable, cost-effective infrastructure that grows seamlessly with your organization. Immutability features protect backup data from ransomware attacks, while centralized repositories eliminate silos and enable organization-wide analytics.  

With simplified management and automated compliance controls, IT teams can focus on strategic initiatives instead of wrestling with storage complexity—giving your business the resilient, future-proof foundation it needs. 

Object First is a tried and tested object storage solution delivering secure, simple, and powerful backup storage that's absolutely immutable and purpose-built for Veeam. With the ultimate ransomware defense, you and your organization are Simply Resilient. 

Ready to simplify your backup storage? Find out how your business can become Simply Resilient with Object First. 

Summary 

Object storage has evolved into a fundamental pillar of modern data infrastructure, driven by explosive growth in unstructured data, escalating ransomware threats, and the demands of AI workloads.  

Its unique combination of near-limitless scalability, built-in immutability through WORM protocols, and cost-efficient tiered storage makes it indispensable across industries—from healthcare organizations protecting patient records under HIPAA, to media companies managing petabyte-scale video archives, to manufacturers handling massive IoT datasets.  

Whether you're building ransomware-proof backups, establishing disaster recovery capabilities, creating data lakes for AI training, or maintaining compliance audit trails, object storage delivers resilience, flexibility, and performance. 

FAQ 

Q: When should I use object storage?  

A: Use object storage for unstructured data at scale—backups, archives, media files, IoT data, data lakes, and any scenario requiring long-term retention, immutability, or cost-effective storage of massive volumes. It's ideal when you need durability, geographic distribution, and metadata-rich organization. 

Q: What is the main advantage to using object storage?  

A: Scalability. Object storage handles petabyte-scale growth seamlessly without performance degradation or architectural limits, while maintaining cost-efficiency through tiered storage and eliminating expensive hardware refresh cycles. 

Q: Which industries benefit the most from object storage solutions?  

A: Healthcare (medical imaging, patient records), media and entertainment (video archives, content distribution), financial services (compliance archives, transaction logs), manufacturing and IoT (sensor data, telemetry), government (public records, citizen data), and any organization with massive unstructured data or strict compliance requirements. 

Q: When should I use Object Storage, Block Storage, and File Storage? 

A: Use object storage for scale and cost: think unstructured data, archives, backups, and scale-intensive workloads. Block storage offers fast performance for databases and applications requiring low-latency random access. File storage offers ease of use for traditional workflows like shared network drives and collaborative workspaces requiring hierarchical organization.  

Q: Cloud Object Storage vs On-Premises Object Storage  

A: Cloud object storage offers unlimited scalability, geographic distribution, and minimal upfront investment, but a pure cloud set up could lead to spiralling costs and data security concerns. On-premises object storage provides total data control, predictable costs, lower latency for local access, and compliance with data residency requirements, ideal for organizations prioritizing security and governance. A hybrid model is the best approach, allowing businesses to take advantage of the inherent features of both on-premises and cloud and achieve the perfect mixture of mobility, performance, and security.