Cloud Storage Lags Behind The Hype

Cloud computing has attracted the attention of nearly everyone, but adoption is still in its infancy. That's particularly true when it comes to moving stored data to the cloud, according to a recent survey done by Forrester Research. In Forrester's "Enterprise And SMB Hardware Survey, North America And Europe, Q3 2009," researchers asked businesses about their interest in "hosted storage capacity" offerings, or storage-as-a-service, and only 3 percent said they plan to implement it in the next 12 months. Another five percent said they would implement it in a year or more. Nearly half, or 43 percent, said they have no interest in storage-as-a-service at all. Another 43 percent did express interest, but have no plans to implement it.

The findings are not surprising, says Andrew Reichman, who, with colleagues Stephanie Balaouras and Alex Crumb, co-authored a report entitled "Business Users Are Not Ready For Cloud Storage." Their report is based is based on responses from more than 1200 decision makers in U.S. and European firms who participated in the survey. Although data storage capacities are growing at 30 percent to 40 percent annually, and storage budgets are flat or barely growing--making low-cost per gigabyte cloud storage seemingly attractive--Reichman says companies aren't convinced that cloud storage makes sense for them.

The Forrester study isn't the only one that indicates the jury is still out when it comes to cloud storage solutions. In the InformationWeek Analytics/Network Computing 2010 State of Storage Survey, a Web survey of business technology professionals, 54 percent said they currently aren't using cloud storage services, while only 34 percent said they are considering it. Only 12 percent are using it, for archiving (five percent), backup and recovery (five percent) and e-mail (twe percent).

Apprehension about cloud storage is well-founded, according to Reichman. "In the long term, cloud computing could change the way people deliver IT services, but I think people are kind of dreaming big," he says. "The reservations I have are mainly for businesses. If you are a consumer or a developer, you probably have a lot of interest in these cheaper services. But if you are a mature business, the reality is there aren't the service level agreements in place to make you feel comfortable."

Specifically, Reichman says, "there is a fundamental mismatch between the price vendors are charging and the value of the data they will be potentially holding," as part of a cloud storage solution. He points to data breaches that could have financial impact that far outweighs money saved via cloud computing. "Shared tenancy is a key piece of the cloud, it is why there can be economies of scale. But security needs to be better."According to the InformationWeek Analytics/Network Computing survey, security is the top concern businesses have about using cloud storage services. In fact, 76 percent of the respondents identified security as a main concern. Reliability came in second (66 percent), performance came in third (52 percent), and cost came in fourth (40 percent).

Moreover, questions remain about what will ultimately be appropriate for general storage-as-a-service offerings. Moving database storage into the cloud would require a huge amount of process design, Reichman says. Storage capacity cannot be geographically separate from compute resources, and that makes storage-as-a-service inappropriate for performance-sensitive, transaction-oriented applications. "The laws of physics don't change," he says.

Storage vendors are making their cases for cloud computing. Most storage vendors have mapped their cloud storage strategies, but offerings are still relatively new and untested. Most of the better-known cloud storage offerings are actually backup-as-a-service, essentially online backup services that let end users and businesses save critical computer files on a secure, off-site server over the Internet. There are plenty of mature backup-as-a-service offerings, according to Forrester Research: Asigra, EMC Mozy, i365 (formerly EVault), IBM Business Continuity and Resiliency Services, and Iron Mountain.

The fact that backup-as-service has matured, and is a well-defined function for an organization, is illustrated in Forrester Research's study, which indicated that more businesses see backup-as-a-service as a viable offering. When asked if they were interested in backup-as-a-service, 16 percent said they have already implemented some form of backup-as-a-service, far more than the three percent of respondents who said they have implemented some form of the more general storage-as-a-service. Thirty-seven percent said they had no interest, while 33 percent are interested but have no plans to move forward.

Reichman attributes the greater interest in backup-as-a-service to the fact that it is more tightly focused and helps answer a clear need. "It is surprising to me the number of big, mature companies that don't have two-site or three-site data protection schemes," he says. "What this type of service does is give them more robust protection without huge capital investment."