by Rene Millman
Enterprises are looking increasingly at cloud storage as an alternative to on-premise storage systems.
Cloud solutions store data remotely without the need to retain it on physical on-premise hardware. Information stored in the cloud means access can be any time and from anywhere so long as you have an internet connection.
While most of the arguments for cloud storage are based around cost, it is important to know just what those costs are and how to ensure you don't end up with an unexpected bill.
Key cost elements
The cost of enterprise cloud storage can vary greatly dependent on particular use cases. Accessing data, capacity stored, retrieval frequency and network bandwidth all add to the cost.
Capacity
One of the key cost elements is capacity. If a large enterprise wants to leverage the benefits of the cloud, it can mean migrating and hosting petabytes of data, and this comes with a considerable cost implication, according to Dave Locke, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) chief technology adviser at independent technology service provider WWT.
