Cloud Storage Strategy: Insights, Observations, and Next Practices

Steve Lesem

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Top Stories by Steve Lesem

Microsoft: Losing Margins to the Cloud?

A recent SmartMoney article tells us that Microsoft's chief software architect is concerned  that cloud services could undermine the company's margins over the long term. He also said that there was probably room only for a few players in the cloud. We beg to differ. IT Service Providers already have the core competencies required to deliver on the promise of cloud computing.  And profit margins are present in cloud storage. In the recent meetings on Cloud Storage at the SNIA Cloud Storage Technical Work Group, one of the specific topics was cloud interoperability, a discussion that assumes multiple clouds by multiple service providers. Read more on this subject on my blog. ... (more)

Forrester: Surprise! The Enterprise is Ready for Cloud Computing

Many Cloud Computing pundits have predicted that the early adopters will be largely comprised of small and mid-sized businesses. Some new data from Forrester suggests that won't be the case.   According to Forrester's Frank E. Gillett in Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong About Cloud IaaS, one out of four large companies plan to use an external provider soon, or have already employed one. Furthermore, we learn that 33 per cent of large companies plan to use a service provider for Infrastructure-as-a-Service, while just 24 per cent want to run their own "private" clouds. The question is ... (more)

ParaScale's Cloud Storage Service Provider Claims

In a recent interview, Sajai Krishnan, CEO of Parascale made some interesting observations about the needs of the cloud storage marketplace and how the offerings from Parascale met them. Krishnan gives us his perspective of the cloud storage market and current opportunities in that space, primarily helping service providers build their own cloud storage offering to retain customers who might otherwise look to Amazon S3. We welcome competition in this space. While we agree with his assessment of the market, there are four claims that deserve a fact check: CLAIM #1: “.. in terms of... (more)

Cloud Storage and Security Not a New Concept

Articles and blog posts associated with security and cloud computing are a daily occurrence, unless some well-publicized breach occurs in the cloud.  At that point the number of commentaries and discussions will increase exponentially, and then, over the following week, return to normal frequency.  I decided to focus on security as it relates to cloud storage, to see if something really new and different is occurring, and if overall changes need to be contemplated, as it comes to classic data security activities.  When I focused in this way, I quickly discovered that not much ha... (more)

Cloud Storage: A Business Model Toolkit for Service Providers

We have built a free Cloud Storage Toolkit for Service Providers to help them answer the question: "Should we enter the Cloud Storage marketspace?" The toolkit includes a tutorial and a spreadsheet - both of which are accessible immediately when you sign up for our Cloud Storage Strategy newsletter. [15-page tutorial] THE TUTORIAL is a 15 page document which shows you how to use the Cloud Storage: A Business Model for Service Providers spreadsheet. It explains each of the 15 variables which make up the model, step-by-step. [15-variable spreadsheet model] THE SPREADSHEET is a custo... (more)