The Sweet Simplicity and Efficiency of the ‘as-a-Service’ Model

Most people think As-a-Service (aaS) is focused on cloud only, but it isn’t. There are on-premises storage solutions sold aaS – as well as cloud products. Many people also believe that the primary advantage of aaS or cloud-based services is the cost savings. While there is a significant cost benefit, that is far from being the only (or perhaps even the most compelling) reason to consider aaS. The simplicity and efficiency of the ‘as-a-service’ model is unlike anything we’ve seen in the industry thus far. Here are many of the key advantages that make Storage as a Service (STaaS) a winning solution.

STaaS Makes It Less Risky to Take on Temporary or Experimental Projects


Storage as a Service means you never have to invest in new hardware for a temporary workload. You can take on projects, discontinue projects, extend projects … all without incurring unnecessary costs.

Enterprises often need temporary storage, such as for a development project or for some big data analytics experiment. Storage as a Service means that you can get temporary storage, for a low cost, which you can acquire immediately (as in minutes from the moment you make the request) and keep indefinitely. Project complete? No problem. Simply cancel the instance, and you’re done. It’s the most convenient, no-risk way to obtain a temporary or experimental storage solution you can find.

STaaS Allows the Business to Transfer Responsibility for the Upgrades & Maintenance

The cost of servers and storage solutions is high, but the ongoing costs for operating, maintaining, and keeping firmware and software upgraded is more than expensive. It’s time consuming, and is often the reason your tech folks don’t get around to more productive work. Storage-as-a-Service shifts all these mundane, tedious, time-consuming, and sometimes frustrating tasks to your storage vendor, meaning your IT team has time for more fruitful projects.

STaaS Makes It Easier to Integrate Various Devices & Platforms


Now you need it, now you don’t. Storage as a Service is the disposable form of enterprise storage. Like Dixie cups, only way more useful.

As businesses strive to be competitive, they require their IT departments to be nimble and responsive. This can be a difficult task when deploying a variety of applications on different platforms. IT departments need to be an enabler to success, rather than a roadblock. There can be a tremendous whipsaw effect as IT is trying to keep up with the demands of the company by purchasing and deploying infrastructure, only to find that the project was canceled or eliminated. More and more IT departments are finding that Storage-as-a-Service gives them flexibility, agility and addresses the increasing need for interoperability.

Additionally, IT now has the ability to change the “personality” of the storage to meet the immediate need. As an example, let’s say you need increased peformance and capacity at the end of the month for quarter-end processing. You may want to change out your controller for more performance, or add additional Solid-State-Drives (SSD) for increased performance. You essentially would like to “borrow” a higher performing array for the week. However, once the processing is done, you would like to go back to your mid-range storage array. With Storage-as-a-Service, this is not only possible, it is very common.

STaaS is Immensely Scalable

We touched briefly on some situations where companies might need temporary storage. Similarly, businesses today need scalability, and that means upward scalability as well as downward scalability. Say you roll out a new product line. It serves its purpose, but a couple of years from now you discontinue that product line in favor of a newer alternative product. With STaaS, you simply close down the storage you don’t need anymore. You haven’t invested tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in storage infrastructure that is now outdated and unsuitable to transfer to use for the new product line.

STaaS Eliminates Much of the Capacity Planning Hassle (and Guesswork!)

Capacity planning is stressful, time-consuming, and when it comes right down to it, actually just a whole lot of guesswork. It’s impossible to plan with a high degree of accuracy exactly what your storage needs will be this time next year, let alone three to five years down the line. With STaaS, that’s okay! Get only what you need, only when you need it, and ditch it when you don’t. It doesn’t get simpler.

To learn more about your storage alternatives, download this Download the ‘STaaS vs Traditional Storage’ infographic now.

Share This Post

More To Explore