Whether it's EMC Vmax, VPlex, Isilon, Atmos or NetApp, none of
these products are priced per usable gigabyte or terabyte of storage. It appears that all are priced on raw storage, the same as their software capacity licenses. In my opinion, the real cloud is a threat to their model, which is why they are all scrambling to be the "outfitter" to the cloud service providers. They'll bring your service customers, as long as you buy their hardware. They say they won't offer storage services because they don't want to compete with service providers. However, in my opinion; they're worried their margins are getting shredded.
While thinking about this scenario, I decided it would be valuable to understand just how well AT&T is doing with Synaptic Storage. After speaking with a number of people associated with Synaptic Storage--VARs, resellers and consumers of the service--it's my opinion that AT&T Synaptic Storage, which runs on EMC Atmos, has made less money on storage services to date than the cash AT&T provided to EMC for the storage farm in the first place. This is not a slam against EMC; it's opinion-based information. ATMOS has value to EMC; EMC has a product offering. However, in my opinion, the sustainable cloud requires a vastly different storage model.
I believe that service providers serious about running a sustainable cloud storage business will not repeat the mistakes of the SSP era. As an industry, we've tried the premium-priced hardware route once. Now it's time to move on to more innovative cloud infrastructures.
As I predicted, venture capitalists realized that cloud gateway providers are an inflated investment. The implosion of Cirtas proves that my analysis was correct--too much hype around the word cloud has led investors to rush money into stand-alone cloud gateway products with questionable value.
Don't get me wrong: Cloud gateways will exist as part of the portfolios of bigger players. However, I would expect more of these small players to start folding up shop much like Cirtas. As I said earlier, nobody charges for moving data to your tape library, so why would you pay for data to be moved to the cloud? Why would you pay cash up front for a cloud gateway, then pay a price per gigabyte for all the data that goes through it (uploads and downloads) on top of the price per gigabyte that you're already paying your cloud service provider? That's like running a toll road to the cloud! And that's a question that the likes of StoreSimple, Twinstrata and Nasuni will need to answer after the bloody aftermath of Cirtas.
