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What is Storage Service Provider?
SSP is a company that offers
computer/disk storage space and other management services to
companies for a fee. SSPs also typically offer backup and
archiving facilities. Some SSPs do data consolidation services
wherein data can be shared across all locations of a company.
SSP can either manage these systems at the customer site or
provide access to their own facilities. Depending on how much
storage capacity is needed and the length of contract, a fee is
charged on a per-gigabyte or per-terabyte basis.
SSP should not be confused with free Internet storage sites that
tailor their services to end users. While the storage model is
the same, SSPs orient their services to companies that require
mission-critical services.
Description of services provided by
SSPs
Managed Storage SSPs provide
disk storage space to companies to manage and store huge amounts
of data. It is also known as pay-per-use service. It can be
either on-site or off-site.
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Remote
Backup/Recovery SSPs handle backup tasks that will
free up both manpower and hardware resources of the client
company and also to prepare for unforeseen disasters. Natural
disasters have persuaded corporate customers to back up data at
multiple sites.
Data
Protection SSPs provide confidentiality and integrity
of data using cryptography (encryption, decryption, and key
management).
Replication
Some SSPs provide replication services where the data is
effectively replicated logically or geographically for better
performance and availability.
Archiving Many SSPs offer
archival facilities for data. This service is especially useful
for maintaining patient records in hospitals or communications
in companies.
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The SSP
model can be classified under different criteria
Management Style The first
type of SSPs can be termed as Pure-Play SSPs. These are
companies that provide provisioned, per-megabyte storage on
equipment that is owned and managed by them. They offer hosted
Internet storage where data from a business is sent over the
Internet to storage systems that reside at secure remote sites.
These SSPs were created for the sole purpose of providing
managed storage for a fee. The other type of management style
SSP is the Traditional storage vendors. These companies offer
what a pure-play SSP model would and also managed storage
services. In this scenario, the SSPs take the responsibility of
managing a customer's data and equipment either at the
customer's location or at a remote location.
Storage
Provisioning SSPs can be classified according to
their storage provisioning abilities. Some of them offer
capacity-on-demand service – the clients pay a flat fee for a
fixed capacity and can use up to that capacity. The other type
is utility computing where the clients are billed according to
their usage similar to electricity and other utilities. There
are other provisioning methods that fall somewhere in between
these two models.
Hosting Site This
classification is based on where the service is provided. It
could be either on-site or off-site
Checklist for choosing a SSP
•Assess the storage system currently in use. Gather all
pertinent data including hardware (server and storage),
operating systems, applications, amount of storage needed in
twelve months, any special problems or wishes concerning storage
and backup/restore functionalities.
•Decide how much you are willing to pay. Find out how high your
storage costs are and make a informed decision. You may have to
buy additional licenses.
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•Compare the SSPs in the market to
find the best one suited to your needs.
•Decide on what is necessary for you like availability,
connectivity, performance, and ease of use.
Evolution of SSP
The rise and fall of SSPs mirrors the lifecycle of the dot com
era. The SSP market began in the mid-1990s when many startups
entered the market as storage service providers. It was
initially dominated by small companies and later taken over by
traditional storage vendors. Some of the early companies that
emerged in the SSP industry were StorageNetworks, ScaleEight,
Storability, StorageWay, and Sanrise. There were also
traditional storage vendors likes IBM, EMC, EDS, Compaq, HP, and
Sun. In early 2000s, the SSP industry faced the economic
downturn of the dot-com companies and went into a decline.
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The industry is slowly regaining and
is on an upward trend. The reasons for this are many - the
economic down turn seems to have ended, there is a
ever-increasing demand for information, and easier ways to find
it and back it up from home offices to corporations, growth in
mobile computing has increased reliance on centrally stored data
that can be accessed remotely, new data storage markets are
emerging in places like Asia and Latin America, Government and
legal record-keeping requirements also are expanding as more
work is done via e-mail and instant messaging, and video data
are more common ranging from security camera footage to movie
downloads.
Although price of storage capacity has gone down significantly,
cost and overhead of storage management has increased at a much
faster rate. So data storage firms are offering not only storage
capacity, but also services and software to make it easier to
sort through data and keep secure. The growing demand to store
anything and everything is the key reason why the industry is
seeing an upward mobility.
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Article Contributed By: Jaya Suresh
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