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The list of vendors offering storage software as a service (SaaS) has grown far beyond the scope of traditional software and service vendors.
Everyone seems to be getting into the game, and there was even a mad dash among storage vendors in late 2007 to put their SaaS stakes in the ground. IBM acquired established backup service provider Arsenal Digital, while EMC picked up Berkeley Systems for its Mozy online backup service to get into the storage SaaS game. Seagate Technology grabbed compliance service provider MetaLincs to bolster the services group it set up--independent of its hard drive business--when it bought EVault in early 2007.
Backup software vendors Symantec and Yosemite Technologies have also been developing SaaS offerings, revealing plans last year to turn their backup products into services.
Email archiving, ediscovery and compliance are other hot service areas. Iron Mountain and SunGard offer email archiving services through partnerships with MessageOne. U.K.-based enterprise search software company Autonomy acquired Zantaz last year in part for its archiving service offerings. And don't forget about the records management sector. Last year, Google acquired Postini, while Iron Mountain picked up Accutrac Software and RMS Services.
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g SaaS? Small businesses without storage expertise are considered prime candidates for using services, but Forrester Research senior analyst Stephanie Balaouras says larger companies are also buying into services for parts of their storage.
"Most SMBs will turn to online backup services," she says. "And even large enterprises are very interested in online backup for PCs, and for remote-office PCs and servers."
Often, the companies that build the SaaS applications don't build the actual services. Arsenal's customer list includes AT&T and other telecommunications companies that rebrand its services.
Internet companies are prime candidates for using SaaS, especially those offering storage services to their customers--such as file-sharing site FreeDrive. FreeDrive quickly found that its business model of letting consumers upload files, videos and photos to share with others would require a major storage investment if it did the hosting itself. FreeDrive CEO Michael Witz says he bought a 6TB storage system, which the firm soon outgrew. When faced with buying another system, he decided to outsource storage rather than build his own storage network. FreeDrive's Witz considered Amazon.com's Amazon S3 and newcomer Nirvanix's Storage Delivery Network, and went with Nirvanix.
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