Storage outsourcing on the rise

More companies today are willing to hand over storage-management functions to a service provider, research shows

Trend-watchers have noted a resurgence of the storage service-provider industry.

According to research firm TheInfoPro, nearly 20% of Fortune 1000 organizations outsource at least some portion of their storage-management activities.

The idea of putting the management and ownership of storage in the hands of an outside provider fell out of favor when many dot.com companies failed in 2001. IT professionals preferred to not only own their storage but also manage it. Many also were reluctant to let an upstart service provider control their data.

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Trend-watchers have noted a resurgence of the storage service-provider industry.

According to research firm TheInfoPro, nearly 20% of Fortune 1000 organizations outsource at least some portion of their storage-management activities.

The idea of putting the management and ownership of storage in the hands of an outside provider fell out of favor when many dot.com companies failed in 2001. IT professionals preferred to not only own their storage but also manage it. Many also were reluctant to let an upstart service provider control their data.

New research from TheInfoPro, however, shows attitudes may be changing. The majority of financial-services companies outsource their e-mail archiving to companies such as ZANTAZ, Iron Mountain and HP. In addition, about one-third of companies use outsourcing for their day-to-day backup activities, contracting with companies such as Iron Mountain, Arsenal Digital and AmeriVault. More than 15% of the businesses surveyed outsource their disaster recovery sites, cable plants and day-to-day break/fix storage activities.

When it comes to e-mail archiving, 42% archive e-mails now, 6% are evaluating it and 32% have archiving in their plans. Surprisingly, 20% of companies have no plans to archive e-mails.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.