Shopping for enterprise storage solutions can be frustrating. If you browse through the blogs and marketing materials put out by the hardware manufacturers, you’ll quickly see that they would like to convince you there’s no place for the enterprise in the cloud. You know that can’t be true, simply because enterprises are adopting the cloud in such large numbers. Conversely, if you read only what the cloud vendors have to say, you’ll see that they want to convince you that on-premise storage is just too expensive and inflexible. It’s become a challenge to find a flexible enterprise storage solution.
What if you could get the best of both worlds? What if you could get the low-cost, convenience, and flexibility of the cloud, plus the ease, security, and low-latency of on-premise storage. Better yet, what if you could get it all without the enormous costs of buying on-premises servers and hardware or without the loss of control and data ownership often attributed to the cloud?
Why Hybrid Works Best for the Enterprise
The hybrid cloud is a happy middle ground between buying all that hardware for your data center and transferring all your data into the cloud.
The main concerns for on-premises enterprise storage solutions are:
• High cost (usually in a big capital expenditure)
• Difficulty in capacity planning
• Locked in to a single vendor
• Difficulty getting executives to sign off on these expenses
The main concerns for all-cloud storage solutions are:
• Security
• Data ownership
• Latency/performance
What if you had a single storage solution that addressed all of the major concerns about both storage options? The hybrid cloud is a means to take advantage of the low cost, scalability, and flexibility of the cloud, without those enormous capital expenditures. There’s no concern about capacity planning, because if you need more, you just buy more. You aren’t locked into the hardware or software of any particular vendor, and you can pay for it as a low, monthly operational expense, just like your electricity bill.
The hybrid cloud also addresses all your concerns about the public cloud. You can keep any data you feel is too sensitive for the public cloud in your own data center, within your four walls, behind your firewall. Additionally, any applications that have little or no tolerance for latency can be kept on-premise. The hybrid cloud literally solves all of the problems related to both types of enterprise storage solutions.
A Flexible Storage Solution: The Benefits of Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS)
With the Zadara Storage solution, you can deploy the on-premise storage you need without those huge capital investments. You can get onsite storage-as-a-service (STaaS), just as you would acquire cloud-based storage. It works similarly to a lease (but has its own unique differences and advantages) — you let Zadara know what you need and how much of it, and voila! It’s yours for as long as you need it. When it’s no longer serving a purpose, it’s gone. No wailing and gnashing of teeth over data center hardware investments that didn’t produce an overnight ROI. There’s no long term commitment and no ownership of outdated hardware.
Whether you need affordable onsite enterprise storage solutions, cloud-based storage, or a hybrid cloud combination of the two, Zadara Storage has the STaaS you need to get it quickly and affordably. Check out the On-Premise as-a-Service Lease Comparison infographic to learn more about the savings and advantages of STaaS. 
