A recent IDC multi-client study reportedly shows that demand for online storage services is very strong in small, mid-size and large firms.

 

Due to the sluggish economy and increasing budgetary worries, companies are looking for cheaper alternatives to carry on business. Cloud-computing companies that require a huge amount of backup are now considering online storage solutions that provide economical alternatives to the traditional data storage solutions, says the IDC (News - Alert) survey.

 

The survey states that as the creation of digital data increases, the storage-as-a-service opportunity is mushrooming all over the digital space. Online services are the new preferred means for various functions such as backing up, sharing, and preserving data long term, says the survey.

 

Accoridng to Brad Nisbet, program manager for Storage and Data Management Services at IDC, as consumers and business organizations continue to generate vast amounts of data and seek optimum methods to store and protect them, the growth of storage capacities delivered through storage-as-a-service offerings will outpace traditional storage architectures.

 

“With storage-as-a-service capacity growing over 65 percent from 174 petabytes in 2007 to over 2.1 exabytes in 2012, the market is rife with opportunity,” Nisbet said.

 

The IDC survey – titled “Storage-as-a-Service: A Personal Consumer, Home Business and Telecommuting Perspective and Storage-as-a-Service: Commercial Opportunities” – says that storage-as-a-service is a precursor to the longer term cloud storage and cloud computing opportunity. This is taking the digital storage market in an entirely new direction and traditional storage software markets are feeling the heat. The IDC survey also states that this development could be an indication of how the market will grow in the near future.

 

Recently, as TMCnet reported, IDC stated that future growth of ATCA adoption will be driven in large part by “megamergers” of large telecom equipment manufacturers like Nokia-Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert). The organization has reached these conclusions after performing an in-depth look at the scope, attitudes and timing associated with adoption of ATCA and commercial off-the-shelf platforms by network equipment providers.