What is cloud storage?

Cloud storage is an alternative way of data storing when the data of a company, organization, etc., is not stored in IT facilities in this organization, such as data centers or individual servers, but on a number of virtual servers.

These servers are hosted by companies which lease or sell storage space on their servers to the companies which do not have or do not need data centers of their own. It is an easy way to gain storage capacity without investing large sums of money on building and maintaining storage facilities.

The data center is not physically situated on the premises of the company, but storage capacity is available to them virtually, via web applications, and in the same way as if the servers were in their building. These solutions are very attractive for small and medium size enterprises -the storage costs of even larger amounts of data are reduced in comparison with conventional data storage systems.

Companies who become customers of these services pay for the storage capacity that they use and do not need to be concerned about installation of hardware, technical problems, services and maintenance of data centers, since this lies in the responsibility of the service provider.

The arguments mentioned above are the most prominent advantages of cloud storage since it clearly reduces IT and hosting costs. Also, the customer does not have to invest in additional security systems, fire systems or special anti-virus software to protect the data center, as they would have to when having their own data center. Of course, since the access to the data in cloud storage gateways is strictly connected with the access to network, the companies using this type of storage depend on the web applications and IT connections. However, more companies offer services based on cloud storage and is possible to rely on private as well as public hosting.