EMC, AT&T Team on Cloud Storage

EMC (NYSE: EMC) this week unveiled a new vision for cloud storage, including a major partnership with AT&T (NYSE: T).

AT&T announced the launch of AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service, based on EMC’s Atmos data storage infrastructure, and EMC unveiled its own cloud service based on the Atmos system.

The new storage-on-demand service gives enterprises “control over the storage, distribution and retrieval of their data from any location, anytime, using any Web-enabled device,” AT&T said.

The business-class storage service lets customers use the AT&T network cloud to store, distribute and retrieve data. Customers will be able to specify policies through a Web-based customer portal, and the service automatically scales storage capacity up or down as needed, requiring users to pay only for what they use.

AT&T and EMC will jointly develop and market the service, which will be introduced on a controlled basis this month, with plans for general availability in the third quarter. The service is deployed in AT&T internet data centers in the U.S. and will be accessible by customers from anywhere. Over time, the service will be expanded internationally.

AT&T says it is aiming the service at businesses “with fluctuating data storage requirements,” and for “extended retention of data no longer needed for transactions.”

Users will be able to store, distribute and retrieve data through the internet or directly from the AT&T network cloud though a virtual private network or other transport service for a securely protected “virtual private storage cloud.”

At EMC World in Orlando on Monday, EMC also unveiled Atmos online, a new Internet-delivered cloud storage service built on the Atmos platform, and EMC Atmos internal to external federation, a new capability that lets customers move, or “federate,” data from on-premise (or internal) to off-premise (or external) Atmos clouds. For example, a customer could set policies to federate their information to an external Atmos storage cloud for cost efficiency and collaboration.

Paul Shread is managing editor of Enterprise Storage Forum, where this story originally appeared.