Managed Storage Moves On: Page 2 of 4

Savvis relies on storage servers and software from 3Par to provide its managed storage service, which is sold to users in 50-Gbyte "chunks." (See 3PAR Picks Up $30M , 3PAR Services SPs, and 3PAR Intros Server.) "More people are asking for it," says Jonathan Crane, Savvis' president. "Any time that we do a proposal, we get asked about managed storage."

With the network upgrade, the service provider is also planning to introduce a Web portal that users can access to increase the capacity of their managed storage, according to the exec. At the moment, Crane told Byte & Switch this can only be done via the Savvis helpdesk.

Savvis, though, could not confirm the specific cost of its storage service, although execs admitted that it is typically sold in conjunction with other hosted services, such as managed servers. Other vendors, though, have been more forthcoming on price and Sun offers access to its own back-end storage for $1 per Gbyte per month. (See Sun Intros Grid Storage.)

IDC's Posey, though, thinks that many users are looking for more than just managed storage. "The trend now is this whole menu of managed and outsourced services," she explains, adding that this could include managed VPNs as well as managed servers.

Telecom providers such as AT&T, which uses an EMC-based SAN and NAS technology as part of its Ultravailable Storage offering, are also refocusing their efforts on storage. This relationship appears to be a two-way street. AT&T, for example, recently entered into a licensing deal with EMC earlier this year, which will enable the storage vendor to license IP network management technology developed for AT&T. (See EMC Reaches AT&T Deal.)