What is Storage as a Service and Why Should You Use It?

In today’s digital world, data storage is more important than ever. As individuals and businesses generate more data every day, finding ways to store all that information can be a challenge. That’s where storage as a service comes in.

Storage as a service, also known as STaaS or storage on demand, allows you to store your data in the cloud instead of on local servers or devices. A third-party service provider hosts and manages remote storage infrastructure on your behalf and you access it over the internet. STaaS offers benefits like cost savings, flexibility, scalability, and accessibility

What is Cloud Storage?

Before diving into storage as a service specifically, it helps to understand cloud storage in general. Cloud storage is when data is stored on remote servers operated by a cloud services provider rather than on-premises servers Some popular examples of consumer cloud storage services are Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Apple iCloud

When you use cloud storage

Your data is stored on servers owned and operated by the service provider.
You access the data over the internet via a web browser, desktop or mobile app.
You only pay for the amount of storage you actually use, typically on a monthly subscription model.

Cloud storage gives you online data backup and lets you access files from anywhere on any device. The cloud provider handles the physical storage infrastructure so you don’t have to.

What is Storage as a Service?

Storage as service takes the concept of cloud storage one step further. With STaaS:

You don’t just get online file storage and sharing.
You get fully offsite data storage infrastructure provided to you as a service. This includes storage hardware, backup, security, and data recovery services.

The STaaS vendor owns and manages all the storage infrastructure. As the customer, you access the storage capacity you need on demand. STaaS allows you to store much larger volumes of data than a typical cloud storage service. It’s designed to support the storage needs of large enterprises rather than individuals or small teams.

Some examples of STaaS vendors include Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud Object Storage, and Rackspace Cloud Files.

The two main types of STaaS are:

Object storage: Used for storing large amounts of unstructured data like documents, images, audio, and video files.

Block storage: Used for structured storage volumes to support compute services like databases, applications, and VM boot volumes.

STaaS is extremely flexible and scalable. You can scale storage up or down on demand as your needs change. It follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model based on how much capacity you use per month.

Benefits of Storage as a Service

Here are some of the main benefits that make STaaS an attractive data storage option:

Cost Savings

No upfront capital investment in storage hardware and software.
Pay only for what you use on a monthly basis.
Scale back capacity when no longer needed to save costs.

Agility and Flexibility

Scale storage up or down quickly and easily.
No lengthy hardware procurement and capacity planning.
Respond faster to changing storage needs.

High Availability and Durability

Data redundancy across multiple servers/locations.
Continuous data backup and disaster recovery.
99.999999999% (11 9’s) object durability.

Security

Physical data center security.
Encryption, access controls, firewalls.
Compliance with security standards and regulations.

Future-Proofed

Always access latest storage technologies.
No aging storage hardware to maintain and upgrade.

By leveraging STaaS, you avoid the need to purchase, configure and manage your own storage systems. The STaaS provider handles all those complexities for you.

Use Cases for Storage as a Service

STaaS can benefit organizations of any size in any industry. Here are some examples of how companies can use it:

Archival storage – Store older data that’s accessed infrequently for long-term retention and regulatory compliance.
Backup and recovery – Protect mission critical data from loss and outages.
Big data analytics – Scalable storage capacity to capture, process and query vast amounts of data.
Content distribution – Global edge locations to distribute content close to end users.
Data lake – Central repository to store and analyze structured and unstructured data.
Hybrid cloud – Extend on-premises infrastructure into the cloud.
Website hosting – Store images, videos and files to deliver web content.

STaaS allows you to store virtually any type of data. It provides the foundation for other cloud services like IaaS, PaaS and SaaS to run on top of.

Getting Started with Storage as a Service

If you think STaaS could be right for your storage needs, here are some tips for getting started:

Take stock of your current storage environment – How much capacity do you currently have? How much of it is utilized? How fast is it growing? Where are the pain points?
Identify required capacity – Project both your short-term and long-term capacity requirements. Plan ahead so you don’t run out of storage.
Determine needed features – Do you need object storage, block storage or both? What throughput and IOPS do you require?
Evaluate leading providers – Research features, pricing, service level agreements and independent reviews. Shortlist 2-3 providers.
Sign up for a trial – Create a trial account to test the provider’s portal, features and technical support. Upload sample data.
Start small then scale – Begin with a small Proof of Concept deployment. Monitor performance and functionality. Then scale out.
Move data and workloads – Once tested, start migrating data into the STaaS environment and transitioning applications.
Continue optimizing – Monitor utilization, spend and performance. Right-size resources and leverage available savings.

In conclusion, storage as a service provides enterprises with flexible, scalable and secure storage capacity on demand over the internet. With STaaS, you only pay for the resources you use each month and avoid the high fixed costs of purchasing and managing your own storage infrastructure.

Leading cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google offer enterprise-grade STaaS solutions. By leveraging STaaS for your storage needs, you can focus less on capacity planning and maintenance and more on innovation that drives business value. The on-demand nature of STaaS allows you to align storage costs closely with business outcomes.

As data volumes continue exponential growth, storage as a service offers an agile, cost-effective platform to keep pace. If your organization has large, growing storage needs, it’s worth exploring how STaaS can help you store, protect, recover and extract value from your data.

What is storage as a service (STaaS)?

Storage as a service (STaaS) is a managed service in which the provider supplies the customer with access to a data storage platform.

The service can be delivered on premises from infrastructure that is dedicated to a single customer, or it can be delivered from the public cloud as a shared service thats purchased by subscription and is billed according to one or more usage metrics.

STaaS customers access individual storage services through standard system interface protocols or application program interfaces (APIs). Typical offerings include bare-metal storage capacity; raw storage volumes; network file systems; storage objects; and storage applications that support file sharing and backup lifecycle management.

Storage as a service was originally seen as a cost-effective way for small and mid-size businesses that lacked the technical personnel and capital budget to implement and maintain their own storage infrastructure. Today, companies of all sizes use storage as a service.

Enterprises can use storage as a service for data transfers and redundant storage, as well as to restore any corrupted or lost data. CIOs might want to use STaaS for the ability to deploy resources in an instant or to replace some existing storage space — leaving room for on-premises storage hardware. CIOs might also appreciate the ability to tailor storage capacity and performance per workload.

As an example, instead of maintaining a large tape library and arranging to store tapes off-site, a network administrator who uses STaaS for backups could specify what data on the network should be backed up and how often.

The company would sign a service-level agreement (SLA). The STaaS provider agrees to rent storage space on a cost-per-gigabyte-stored and cost-per-data-transfer basis. The companys data would then be automatically transferred at the specified time over the storage providers proprietary wide area network (WAN) or the internet. If the companys data were to ever become corrupt or lost, the network administrator could contact the STaaS provider and request a copy of the data.

Storage as a Service (STaaS) — A Truly Modern Model

What is storage as a service?

Why do companies use storage as a service?

Today, companies of all sizes use storage as a service. Enterprises can use storage as a service for data transfers and redundant storage, as well as to restore any corrupted or lost data.

What is storage as a Service (STaaS)?

What is data storage as a service (SaaS)?

Data storage is flexible, and STaaS contributes a significant amount to that flexibility. Read next about the top storage as a service providers. Storage as a Service (SaaS) is a cloud-based storage solution that provides businesses with secure storage. Learn more about StaaS and its benefits.