As managed service providers (MSPs) diversify their offerings to meet customer demands and remain competitive in a booming market, the issue of what to do with all the data they are moving gains importance. The cloud storage business is booming, and service providers need to choose wisely if they want to offer secure and uninterrupted service to their clients.
Two studies conducted by storage vendors were released this week and point to the importance of cloud storage solutions for MSPs. TwinStrata reports that more than a third of those they queried have used cloud solutions for three or more years, representing an increase of more than a third over the past year. And 46 percent of those surveyed are already using cloud storage, while a whopping 84 percent have plans to use it.
NTP Software also released a study showing that MSPs need to take a closer look at what they are storing and how they're storing it. The company found that 61.6 percent of file data stored on primary storage systems had not been accessed in more than six months, creating whopping inefficiencies and expenditures. They also found that the average growth rate for file data is between 45 to 60 percent over the past five years, so the storage problem is clearly not going to go away.
Cloud storage vendors are taking full advantage of this increasing need and MSP Today reported on a potential pricing war in the storage space this week. Asigra recently changed its pricing to reflect the amount of data recovered in the event of a problem instead of just the size of the backup. And Unitrends announced a new partner program for MSPs with an emphasis on margins and recurring revenues. Meanwhile, StorageCraft is offering 30-percent off for devices supporting its StorageCraft Cloud Services through the end of September.
And while the public cloud market in China is relatively new compared to the U.S. and Western countries, that hasn't stopped the cloud storage trend from booming there. ChinaCache International Holdings announced a partnership with Kingsoft Cloud Group this week to add cloud hosting, online storage and content delivery networks (CDN) to its offerings. The company is a carrier-neutral service provider that is branching out into the cloud storage space to meet increasing demand.
