Does Kaleido connect to external / cloud-based storage instances or do I have to store my data on Kaleido?
Yes, Kaleido can connect to external storage solutions or you can opt to use Kaleido's own storage. For storage, you can opt to let Kaleido store your data for you or configure a cloud-based storage solution of your choosing: either AWS S3 or Azure Blob.
Customers also have the option to retain data in their existing DB orchestration. If data does not need to be regularly disemminated amongst the network and is simply being referenced on-chain via a hash, then you simply need to read your relevant data structures into a standard hashing algorithm like SHA256 and pin these hashes onto an available smart contract. If and when organizations or end users need access to the underlying data, it will be the responsibility of the applicaiton developer to grant or proxy access to the relevant file(s).