At bare minimum, outsourced storage solutions ensure consistent access to data, regular and safe backups, and a guaranteed fast turnaround on data recovery. Those are not new concepts. "These are things they ask for internally but often can't get, because their people are doing 100 other things," says Dan Glisky, president of managed storage provider Compsat Technology.
Keep It Safe
At its most basic level, Internet-enabled storage can help fight the most elementary of all computer-user failings: keeping information safe. "It's clear that more corporate-critical data is being maintained on laptops and desktops," says IDC's Steve Widen. "Drop the laptop, and destroy all the data that's on there." Avoiding the hassle of juggling removable media like Zip disks or CD-ROMs can be as easy as setting everyone up with a free or low-frills account at consumer sites such as Yahoo!, Driveway or Xdrive.
Online backup systems that have an always-on monitor client, such as Connected's Connected.com, have an edge over pure Web interfaces employed by low-end solutions. Connected has the ability to force a backup automatically when a laptop rejoins the network or a desktop is well past dueâ€"something a browser can't monitor.
Connected offers its service to customers and resellers as a full-service hosted app, complete with unlimited storage for about US$250 per PC, per year, or as a network-storage technology that can be implemented on a corporate WAN or intranet and managed locally.
