AT&T Plans Enterprise Cloud Storage Service

AT&T today announced plans to introduce cloud storage services for businesses using its nationwide network and Internet Data Centers. The service, which will be rolled out this month and be generally available in the third quarter, will use EMC's Atmos technology to provide a policy-based platform so enterprises can store, distribute and retrieve data over the Internet or using virtual private networks or other transport services.

The entry of one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies into the storage-as-a-service market could change its dynamics since AT&T has one of the most extensive and redundant networks in the country, with dozens of switching centers and hosting centers, and spends vast sums on network capacity and computing and storage hardware. It has economies of scale that are hard to match by companies that don't own their own network, and it could potentially offer services at prices that would be hard to beat. However, the nation's two largest telecom companies -- AT&T and Verizon -- tend not to compete on price in the enterprise market.

The announcement provides a big endorsement for EMC's Atmos platform, which is a nice boost for the company as it begin its EMC World gathering this week in Orlando, Fla. AT&T and EMC will jointly develop and market the service. EMC, meanwhile, today introduced new services to extend Atmos by offering an Internet-based cloud storage service. EMC Atmos onLine provides what the company called Cloud Optimized Storage capabilities that lets customers move and manage large amounts of data and lets them link, or federate, internal and external Atmos clouds and move data between the two for redundancy, cost savings or to assist in collaboration.

AT&T said its Synaptic Storage as a Service will let customers set policies to manage the storage through a Web portal. The storage service will scale capacity up or down, and customers will be charged only for the capacity they use. Initially deployed in AT&T U.S. Internet data centers, the company said it will add the service to some of its international data centers based on customer demand.

"The demand for data storage continues to grow at a staggering rate, driven by companies' need for 24x7 access to business critical data," Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president of strategy and application services for AT&T Business Solutions, said in a statement. "AT&T Synaptic Storage helps enterprises get a handle on these increasingly complex storage environments, while controlling costs and improving service levels."

Cloud storage has attracted a host of service providers in the past year, many targeting the consumer and small business markets. They are marketed as an easy and cost effective method for backing up and securing data that can eliminate the need for those without technical expertise to set up their own storage networks and backup systems. For larger enterprises, storage services have typically been used for off-site backups and archives, although their use has been limited by bandwidth requirements and questions about reliability and security.

AT&T is marketing its services as a way for businesses to avoid having to spend capital on "costly equipment for more data storage capacity" or deploying "cumbersome and redundant data retrieval procedures." It also said the service can help businesses store older data that isn't changed frequently "at a fraction of the cost of managing data over a dedicated storage area network."

AT&T may be one of the few companies that can reassure businesses that it has the security and redundancy and rock-solid network so that their data will always be available. AT&T said customers will be able to combine the storage service with other AT&T services to create a "virtual private storage cloud" that is protected by the company network-based security services. A rash of problems in the past year by a variety of service providers has cast a cloud over the use of storage services for critical data. Several services provided by Google were >a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217500452">down for several hours last week, for example, making key services and information unavailable and causing a 5 percent decline in overall Internet traffic.

"Cloud storage holds out the promise of enabling a new generation of storage services with flexible, on-demand capabilities that address both runaway costs and a diverse combination of changing business priorities and regulatory requirements," Adam Couture, principal research analyst with Gartner, said in a statement. "The initial attraction has been staggering cost differential between traditional storage offerings and cloud storage. But as cloud storage matures providers will differentiate themselves in areas like security, data portability, ease of access and integration and quality of service."

AT&T did not release any pricing information for the storage service.

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