Executive Summary
Public cloud storage is immediately available, offers unlimited capacity, the ability to spin up/down resources using only what you pay for – all available as a pay-as-you go, managed resource. This has made it a ready alternative to traditional storage, which has its well-known challenges. However, public cloud storage used as primary storage presents its own challenges. Public cloud security is a perennial issue as well as the security of network connections between the enterprise data center and the CSP’s data center. Primary-grade storage performance adds cost, and monitoring and managing public cloud cost consumes staff time. Data movement away from the CSP also adds cost. Finally, problems can be difficult to remediate when dealing with the CSP’s support staff.
Storage implemented as an on-premises service (STaaS) offers the immediacy, scalability and pay-per use flexibility of public cloud storage without the security and variability in performance issues. Additionally, it can be consumed as a managed service when staffing becomes an issue. It also allows the customer to acquire the latest technology on an OPEX, pay-as-you-need-it basis without having to commit capital resources to technology that will become increasingly obsolete as time goes on.
In this Evaluation guide, we outline the use cases and the capabilities of STaaS offerings currently available to enterprise IT end users. We discuss the features we believe to be important in an evaluation of these offerings and provide evaluation criteria via our EvaluScale comparison matrix.
Evaluation Guide Includes:
- Overview
- Storage as a Service (STaaS) Background
- Storage as a Service (STaaS) Use Cases and Characteristics
- Evaluation Questions
- EvaluScale Criteria
- OPEX Considerations
Download now to read the free Evaluation Guide
