Modern businesses are storing a greater volume and variety of data, and they are looking to get more out of that data – accessing it more frequently and analyzing it in greater depth to facilitate better decision making. Against this backdrop, enterprises desire to consume IT as a utility; they want IT to “just work,” being always available and accessible, and to keep costs in check, they want to pay only for what they use as they use it.
The concept of “consumption-based” IT is frequently thrown around in the context of facilitating utility-like IT delivery. Vendors and storage buyers often associate consumption-based IT with leasing and with public cloud services. In reality, consumption-based IT is different and stands to offer unique benefits.
Leasing is a financial construct that typically enables an enterprise to pay off a set amount of on-premises infrastructure on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Leasing offers financial flexibility for businesses as compared to purchasing infrastructure outright, at the outset. However, it is static and still likely requires the IT organization to overprovision, to be sure that it can meet service level agreements (SLAs). In contrast, consumption-based procurement enables the enterprise to pay only for the IT resources that it uses, affording flexibility to increase or to shrink resources on a regular basis (hourly, daily etc.), in line with dynamic business needs.
The consumption-based IT model was born in the public cloud, but it is different still than the public cloud because it enables not just off-premises but also on-premises resources to be metered, managed and billed based on usage. Consumption-based IT stands to blend the economic benefits of public cloud services, with the greater performance, control and security of the on-premises data center. IT managers can procure resources with no upfront expenses, and they can be billed and also tweak resources as usage needs change, regardless of where those IT resources are physically located.
Data protection is a prime candidate for the consumption-based model, because IT typically overbuys both compute and storage because they are worried about meeting backup capacity needs, as well as performance needs when it comes to recovery. In our on demand webinar, Storage Switzerland joins Veeam and HPE to further discuss what constitutes an effective consumption-based solution, and why data protection may be a prime candidate for this new model.
Senior Analyst, Krista Macomber produces analyst commentary and contributes to a range of client deliverables including white papers, webinars and videos for Storage Switzerland. She has a decade of experience covering all things storage, data center and cloud infrastructure, including: technology and vendor portfolio developments; customer buying behavior trends; and vendor ecosystems, go-to-market positioning, and business models. Her previous experience includes leading the IT infrastructure practice of analyst firm Technology Business Research, and leading market intelligence initiatives for media company TechTarget.
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