Storage
SHARE
Facebook X Pinterest WhatsApp

Cloud Storage Poised to Save Enterprises Money: Report

Public cloud storage services are fast becoming a more attractive option for the enterprise, according to a new report by research firm Ovum. In its “Clouds Open for Enterprise Storage” report, Ovum said that a new generation of services is emerging in public clouds that can handle live data generated by applications running on customers’ […]

Written By
thumbnail David Needle
David Needle
Jul 30, 2010
Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More

Public cloud storage services are fast becoming a more attractive option for the enterprise, according to a new report by research firm Ovum.

In its “Clouds Open for Enterprise Storage” report, Ovum said that a new generation of services is emerging in public clouds that can handle live data generated by applications running on customers’ premises. These storage services are designed to be used separately from other cloud services and are attractively priced compared to traditional, on-premises storage systems.

“Not only do they relieve the burden of storing data on customers’ premises, but they also have the multiplying effect of transferring to the cloud provider the responsibility of backing up that data,” Ovum senior analyst Timothy Stammers said in a statement.

Vendors have been pitching online storage services to IT for over a decade, but they never reached their potential or won significant adoption.”Considerable investments were made in these companies, and industry observers predicted that they would thrive. But the opposite happened, and the [online storage service provider] movement collapsed within a few years,” Ovum said in its report.

Cost was a big factor in that failure. Because the online storage service providers were using the same enterprise storage systems as their customers, their services weren’t significantly cheaper than what customers were paying for their own in-house storage. Stammers also noted that these providers faced hefty network bandwidth costs and resistance from customers still unfamiliar with the emerging concept of public cloud services.

But a lot has changed over the past several years. The price of network bandwidth has plummeted and, with IT budgets under considerable pressure in a shaky economy, CIOs are looking for ways to effectively cut costs. Also, far from being a foreign concept, cloud computing has become far more established with the success of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) and other well-known providers.

Ovum also said service providers are starting to use a new generation of object-oriented storage technology, which stores very large volumes of data at far lower cost than conventional enterprise storage systems.

In an interview with InternetNews.com, Stammers pointed to several startups that already offer these new cloud services, including Nirvanix, Nasumi and Ctera. “Nirvanix is the oldest with about 700 customers in three years, which is pretty impressive,” Stammers said.

He also noted that many of these new cloud storage providers aren’t even operating the storage systems themselves. Instead, they leverage giant storage clouds run by Amazon, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) or RackSpace (NYSE: RAX) to get further economy of scale.

These companies offer enterprise customers a gateway system that translates traditional file structures to the object-oriented storage.

“To the customer it still looks like ordinary storage and there’s caching to alleviate latency issues,” Stammers said. “Typically these systems also provide their own backup, but companies may also choose to do that on their own for an extra level of protection.”

David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

  SEE ALL
ARTICLES  
thumbnail David Needle

David Needle is a veteran technology reporter based in Silicon Valley. He covers mobile, big data, customer experience, and social media, among other topics. He was formerly news editor at Infoworld, editor of Computer Currents and TabTimes, and West Coast bureau chief for both InformationWeek and Internet.com.

Recommended for you...

thumbnail 10 Top Storage Certifications for Data Professionals In 2024
Careers
10 Top Storage Certifications for Data Professionals In 2024
Anina Ot
Mar 27, 2024
thumbnail What is Data Compression & How Does it Work?
Big Data
What is Data Compression & How Does it Work?
Kashyap Vyas
Sep 19, 2023
thumbnail What Is a Data Pipeline? Examples & Types
Big Data
What Is a Data Pipeline? Examples & Types
Anina Ot
Sep 18, 2023
thumbnail Top 10 Data Center Certifications
Careers
Top 10 Data Center Certifications
Kashyap Vyas
Aug 22, 2023
Datamation Logo

Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.

facebook
youtube
x

Company

About us Contact us Advertise with us

Categories

Trends Big Data Data Center AI Cloud Applications Mobile Open Source Security Storage

Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

Terms of Service Privacy Policy California - Do Not Sell My Information