MSPs Need to Rethink Cloud Storage Services

As data continues to grow in staggering proportions, managed services providers (MSPs) need to rethink basic managed storage and cloud storage services.

With the explosion of digitized data, more than 1.2 million petabytes and growing at a rate of more than 50 percent annually, more MSPs are moving to cloud backup solutions for their customers in order to lower costs and reduce administrative overhead.

In the last 18 months, external cloud services have gained increased popularity and traction, with several new providers emerging and ramping up their cloud service offerings, according to IT research firm Gartner (News - Alert).

In fact, worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage vendor revenue from external cloud computing deployments is forecasted to grow from $267.4 million in 2010 to $1.45 billion in 2015, according to Gartner. The market is on pace to total $417.3 million in 2011, a 56 percent increase from 2010.

But for MSPs, a complicated backup solution will only increase service overhead and limit the cost savings attained through hosted backup. An automated, secure service in the cloud can remove the burden of managing the complex and error-prone data protection process.

More than 70 percent of top MSPs already offer some form of cloud storage and managed storage, according to recent “MSPmentor 100” survey results. Backing up and protecting PCs to the cloud is becoming a commodity service, which means MSPs need to rethink their cloud storage services and differentiate their services from their competitors.

An upcoming webinar, “Grow Your Bottom-line With a Cloud Data Protection Solution that Adds Value,” will be held on Jan. 19 to discuss trends and challenges in cloud-based data protection; continuous backup and recovery for various servers; and mitigating costs and risk while increasing your bottom-line.

Want to learn more about cloud communications? Then be sure to attend the Cloud Communications Expo, collocated with TMC’s ITEXPO East 2012 taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. The Cloud Communications Expo will address a growing need of businesses to integrate and leverage cloud based communications applications, process enhancement techniques, and network based communications interfaces and architectures. To register, click here.

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