What the cloud means for storage capacity consumption

The cloud is changing the storage game. Once, storage pricing was based on market conditions, and actual prices were held in confidence by vendors until deals were done. In many cases, strong vendor relationships had a huge impact on who actually won, despite price. That is no longer the case. The move to private, public and hybrid clouds has affected every aspect of storage capacity consumption.

Without free and open competition, vendors feel that they can get away with charging a bit more, which is one of the main reasons to avoid vendor lock-in.

Five Reasons Why the Cloud Will Change Storage Pricing Forever

1.  Consumers are beginning to understand the true total cost of providing storage resources internally.

2. Pricing is now in the open and vendors are beginning to advertise based on price.

3. Pricing is moving to price-per-GB-per-month versus price-per-TB-purchased.

4. The RFP process is very different for cloud storage services versus storage purchased for internal use.

5. Cloud storage is an operational expense, not a capital purchase.

In order to make sure moving to the cloud makes sense, companies need to understand the costs of providing storage resources on their own. Below are several steps you can take to reach that understanding:

1) Classify your data so you understand its relative importance to the organization.

2) Do an internal audit on your existing total expenses for storage services.

3) Create logical storage tiers based on importance of what is being stored.

3) Create a model for chargeback for storage consumption within the organization.

4) Include backup storage requirements as part of your internal assessments.

5) Create standard service level agreements (SLA) with the application owners based on performance and reliability metrics.

Once you have all of these steps accomplished, you can take the results and develop an RFP process to bring to cloud storage service providers. Then, you can make an informed decision about whether it's more cost effective to move to the cloud, create an internal private cloud, or continue business as usual. 

Christopher Poelker is the author of Storage Area Networks for Dummies, the vice president of enterprise solutions at FalconStor Software, and deputy commissioner of the TechAmerica Foundation Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD²).