O que é armazenamento como serviço?

Storage as a Service, or STaaS, is a vendor provided service that is synonymous with cloud storage. While this is mainly the case, there are STaaS models where vendors may manage the on-premise storage of clients, like tape drives, appearing more like an in-house consultant than a vendor. However, this is becoming obsolete due to digital transformation of smaller and enterprise companies moving into the cloud.

STaaS models are highly useful for businesses of any size. For small businesses, vendors provide the expertise, and the hardware for them to operate in competition with much bigger players. The ability to leverage the same technical capabilities, such as storage scaling, disaster recovery management, and security protection helps to level the playing field for many businesses, as well as lower barriers of entry for start-ups.

For enterprises, STaaS can be used to augment their data storage strategy. A typical case would be to store long term data with a provider, while maintaining operational/transactional data on on-premise infrastructure. But this configuration can also serve as a stepping stone for enterprises to shed their on-premise infrastructure and move to the cloud.

The overarching benefit of STaaS is to offload labor and costs. By offloading some or all storage management to a vendor, effectively that branch of effort is reduced to a line item on the IT department’s budget. A very close secondary benefit, and perhaps more valuable to small businesses, is that the storage provider will assume much of the protection and security of data, something that may be difficult for smaller IT teams.

Other advantages include:

• Storage subscription models optimize costs
• STaaS solutions are inherently scalable, storage will expand and contract to fit consumer demands
• Data files are synced frequently so storage is always fresh
• Storage costs tend to be lower than on-premise infrastructure, highly beneficial for most businesses
• Top class STaaS also provides resiliency services, like disaster recovery to mitigate against worst possible outcomes and get servers and your data back up
• Security tends to be stronger for top class providers because storage is their primary business (however, always ensure security matches company needs and requirements)

For many who work with storage, they tend to view it as files and folders, but this is not the only type of storage format in the cloud. The three main types are block storage, file storage, and object storage.

• Block Storage — Block storage, or block-based storage, is a popular option for storage formatting, and is often put in contrast to file storage, and object storage. Block storage, as the name implies, chunks out data into blocks, each with a unique identifier. These fixed-sized blocks then can be individually saved to any number of storage devices, wherever the system finds it most convenient. Block storage can conveniently spread data across multiple environments, enabling systems to take advantage of systems that best serve the needs of storage and data. Some blocks can be stored in a Windows system, while others on a Linux box, to be later assembled when a data request is made.
• File Storage — Very common in the minds of computer users, data is stored in files and subsequently organized into folders.
• Object Storage — Object storage is an approach to data storage meant to overcome the limitations that other file systems have in the face of the voluminous data generated by the growing number of users and devices in the world today. This storage system differs from others by organizing data using metadata rather than using a file hierarchy. Object storage is used chiefly in data lakes.

Three classes of storage as a service have stood out in the modern cloud. Each innovates upon basic cloud storage capabilities, and new developments will continue to evolve vendor offerings, subsequently creating new classes. Generally, these classes can be referred to as IaaS-based products, specialized STaaS providers, and capacity-on-demand offerings.

• IaaS-based products — Traditional cloud storage offers have evolved offering more sophisticated capabilities. Many now offer both object storage and block type storage, as well as file sharing and added features.
• Specialized STaaS providers — Specialized STaaS providers will offer hybrid products that bridge on-premise infrastructure and cloud spaces using a unified managed storage service.
• Capacity-on-demand offerings — This class charges consumers based on usage. Like IaaS-based products, these providers assume operations and own the infrastructure.