NTT America adds storage to its enterprise cloud offering

NTT America (NYSE: NTT) is following up its U.S. cloud computing debut with its new offering Cloud Files, a cloud-based storage solution.

Posed as an alternative to costly typical SAN and NAS-based systems, an enterprise user could place their backup and archival information functions into NTT America’s cloud infrastructure. Immediately available to any size enterprise customer, Cloud Files offers a "pay as you go" subscription and various cloud features, including SAS 70 Type II audit, in-flight and at-rest encryption, and 24×7 customer support by engineers. Service prices begin at $.15 per gigabyte per month, with volume discounts available.

While cloud-based storage may be a compelling alternative from a cost perspective, it is still a new concept that enterprises are warming up to. NTT America appears to allay fears by giving customers the ability to manage their own storage requirements. The service also allows enterprises to create unlimited storage accounts that they can define with their own account names and descriptions so IT departments can more easily manage files and grow storage that meets their own requirements.

In addition to the obvious savings on network maintenance, the NTT America solution would enable enterprises to also cut down on disaster recovery costs and planning because putting data in the cloud doesn’t require remote physical storage locations and the data is protected from local disaster issues.