SAN FRANCISCO – Disaster recovery vendor StorageCraft Technology Corp. wants its partners to know their feedback on the Cloud Services pricing model was heard, and now it’s changing the structure as a result.
Rather than charge customers on a per-gigabyte pricing structure for storing data in the cloud with varying levels of capability, StorageCraft will now offer flat monthly fees that are on a per-terabyte basis. The announcement was made on Tuesday at VMworld, VMware’s annual user conference.
While the vendor launched its Cloud Services about two and a half years ago, it hasn’t seen the customer adoption it wanted, says Matt Urmston, director of product management at StorageCraft. When it talked to their partners about this, they were told the problem was the per-GB pricing structure.
“It was a little complicated, a little difficult to swallow,” he says. “We were being compared to Amazon and Azure where its pennies per gigabyte. It wasn’t fair because it’s not apples to apples.”
Public cloud services offer storage for next to nothing, but they don’t offer the same type of backup services that StorageCraft offers. It CloudServices, built on its ShowdowProtect software, are specifically designed for disaster recovery scenarios. It offers three levels of service:
- Cloud Basic: Secure offsite storage of critical business backups with a full system restore via a bare metal restore drive. (You get shipped a hard drive.)
- Cloud+: Everything in Cloud Basic and immediate file and folder recovery from the cloud. (For specific files when user is looking for something).
- Cloud Premium: Everything mentioned above, plus instant virtualization of data and systems in the cloud to allow for minimal downtime in the event of a disaster.
“When you look at our customer base, I’m convinced there’s value for the premium service across the board,” Urmston says. “But it boils down to what their objectives are for a data recovery situation.”
Under the new pricing structure, Urmston says that many customers will find they can upgrade to the most premium level of service at the same price they are paying for a basic level now. Customers will also be able to predict their spending, since it will be the same flat rate each month instead of variable.
StorageCraft offers a Canadian datacentre and ensures that data remains in the country for Canadian clients that require that to maintain compliance.
This video further explains the Cloud Services that were first introduced in 2012:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=46&v=CNPL8zZ3BIY