Managed Services Resurge

Is managed storage back? Years after the "storage service provider (SSP)" model exited stage right, a flurry of recent announcements shows renewed interest. The question is, by whom? The chatter about new services may have as much to do with marketing as with actual revenues.

Let's start at the top. Within the last two weeks alone, announcements show firms are freshly interested in selling a range of services related to storing and protecting data. To do that, they're acquiring companies, expanding their current service offerings, and branching out into new kinds of storage-related services. Following are just a few examples:

The above are just the tip of an iceberg that includes not only a rash of storage service announcements, but news of suppliers selling wares to service providers for a diverse range of offerings, including hosting and business continuity, email management and archiving, storage consulting, and disaster recovery. (See XOsoft, AmeriVault Team, AmeriVault Adds Recovery, SunGard, Recall Team Up, and Eze Castle Offers DR.)

Is the SSI model back on its feet with a mission? Service providers say yes. Spokespeople for EVault, for example, say its online backup service for SMBs grew 52 percent last year; its enterprise managed services grew "exponentially"; and professional services, including consulting, grew by 500 percent. As a result, EVault plans to announce a new set of professional service offerings later this month.

At least one analyst thinks managed services are growing. "Not only is customer interest in managed services on the rise, but managed security and storage services are typically among the first forms of managed service that SMBs adopt," wrote Jeff Kaplan, founder of consultancy THINKStrategies consultancy, in a recent blog.Despite this view, and even though service providers insist services are hot -- at least for them individually -- others aren't so sure about the overall market.

"With no hard data to relate, I have to say we're not seeing significant growth, though there is more marketing attention [to services] in the past twelve months," says Doug Chandler, program director at IDC. While there are great arguments for services, he says he hasn't yet seen proof of a lot of new customer activity.

Cost has traditionally been a factor. While many customers appear willing to pay the price to have someone take backup off their hands, they're not saving on hard costs by doing so. (See B&S Insider Looks at Backup.) Instead, users cite more intangible benefits, such as the assurance that data can be retrieved more quickly in case of an outage.

The truth is, services of all kinds still cost a lot: EVault's professional services start at $150 per hour, for instance. And email archiving and management services from PrivacyVault start at about $0.40 per day per user. If you've got 1,000 users -- well, it's not a bargain.

One analyst thinks managed storage will probably be a vehicle for wider adoption of so-called utility pricing model, wherein customers buy storage for applications, backup, or disaster recovery on a "per gig, per month" basis. "We believe that 20 percent of all storage allocated by outsourcers is on a utility model. By 2009, that will be more like 70 percent," says Adam Couture, principal analyst at Gartner.If costs can be whittled down or shifted to a utility model, that could give a boost to service adoption. After all, the providers are there, and they're convinced the market is there. All that's needed, apparently, is a way to bring the two together.

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch