Storage Fusion introduces flat pricing model for SaaS storage analytics 1 November, 2009 By Mark Cox

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Storage Fusion is a subsidiary of an investment TLC in the U.K., that came out of a 2007 acquisition. At that time, storage analytics was a minor part of the portfolio, but within a year this was spun out. So although the company is only a year old, the technology has been around for three and a half years.

"We went to market at the beginning of this year, and the traction and takeup have been fantastic, so that we are already profitable," said Graham Wood, Storage Fusion's Managing Director. "SRA makes possible easy reclamation of storage LUNs, which quickly recovers costs. And in compliance, it discovers sleeping catastrophes which would get the customer fined."

Storage Fusion's enterprise analysis modules are now combined into a single unified service, including a comprehensive set of analytics that report on system utilization, capacity allocation and disk tiering, based on site and workgroup classifications. It also includes an environmental module that calculates power consumption of storage hardware down to individual disk drives.

The company has used a SaaS model from the start. But in the past, Storage Fusion's SRA service fees were based on the amount of disk storage capacity being analyzed. The new model totally eliminates this multilevel pricing structure. SRA's complete range of enterprise class analytics is included in the flat monthly service charge regardless of the total storage capacity or number and location of data centers.

"We haven't really changed the model, we've just matured to the point where it can be a service in its own right as opposed to being an enablement for other professional services," Wood said. "It was always our intention to move to this."

"There are other vendor tools on the market, but their analytics are somewhat cumbersome to extract information easily," said Colin Horne, sales director at Storage Fusion. "All require agents to be installed or other disruptive elements." SRA, on the other hand, is completely non-intrusive.

"SRA is delivered using a SaaS model and requires no software deployed on customers' premises," Horne said. "And it comes in at a fraction of the cost to use, on administration, software support, and change management."

Horne said they expect the change in SRA's pricing model to increase appeal to both large organizations and smaller ones, and that while their business to data has largely been in the enterprise and the midmarket, this will have appeal even to SMBs.

"We are after the volume basis, which drives so much value for the channel," Horne said.

Storage Fusion has a 100% channel model, which has been based in the past mainly on a small number of large solutions providers like Glasshouse and ACS (recently purchased by Xerox). However as they expand into North America, that channel must broaden out, Horne said.

"We know there are a myriad of smaller partners out there in the U.S., and we are starting a search in the U.S. for a distributor with a hosted capability, and will recruit a myriad of consultancy-type partners for coverage in the US market."