MCI today unveiled a new on-demand storage service that allows customers to expand and contract the storage capacity they buy, using a shared storage facility, and pay as they go for what they use.

The MCI Utility Storage Service is intended to “help customers deal with the reality in storage,” which is that growing storage needs are dynamic,. Said Rick Dyer, director of product management for MCI Hosting Services. Rather than require customers to build out storage capacity in anticipation of demand, and risk stranding some of that investment, MCI will enable customers to get what they need where they need it, on demand, and therefore more cost effectively use their resources, Dyer said.

“Rather than have to commit to a specified amount of storage per server, customers can buy what they need and over time, add or subtract as needed, and we will bill them on a monthly fee basis,” with volume discounts built it, he said.

The MCI Utility Storage Service will be more efficient for customers whose storage needs are more volatile than dedicated storage resources which must be physical expanded in pre-determined increments as they are exhausted.

“Today, even with hosted services, the customer will still have some storage array dedicated to them, and once you hit the limit, it’s a step function to upgrade,” Dyer explained. “With this service, you buy storage infrastructure which you can share across many servers, and there is no step function when you need to increase what you buy. That is more cost effective and eliminates the length time required to provision storage.”

MCI will provide the storage service using technology from 3Par and AppIQ, which is hosted at its two Smart Centers, one in Beltsville, Md., and one in San Jose, Calif. The company will manage the service and monitor performance to assure customers of quality, Dyer said. The service uses a redundant architecture of switches and storage fabrics to enable the resources to be shared and to ensure reliability. The MCI Utility Storage Service is already being sold by MCI sales people and becomes part of the company’s storage portfolio.

”We expect to have a mix of customers, including new customers with storage needs in this range and existing customers, as they reach the end of life of their current solutions or as they add new servers,” he commented.