AT&T offering cloud data storage service
Monday, May 18, 2009
AT&T announced today that it will begin offering cloud-based storage-as-a-service in partnership with EMC Corporation.
The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop and market the service, AT&T said. Called Synaptic Storage as a Service, AT&T said it will roll out the service to customers on a controlled basis this month, with plans to make the service generally available in the third quarter.
"The demand for data storage continues to grow at a staggering rate, driven by companies' need for 24x7 access to business critical data," said Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president of strategy and application services for AT&T Business Solutions.
Indeed, according to a study released simultaneously by EMC Corporation today, the amount of digital information created in 2008 grew 3 percent faster than prior projections - despite the recession.
"Looking forward, the Digital Universe is expected to double in size every 18 months. In 2012, five times as much digital information will be created versus 2008," EMC said.
With the growing demand for cloud-computing services, security researchers have reported that the model poses security challenges.
A report last week from Forrester Research said an effective assessment of cloud computing "must cover data protection, compliance, privacy, identity management, secure operations and other related security and legal issues."

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