(NOTE: This story was originally posted to CRN.com Nov. 30.)

Piecing Together Cloud Storage

Are you looking for more variety in your cloud storage offerings? Solution providers have a growing arsenal of tools aimed at helping build storage clouds in response to a variety of customer requirements. Whether it's for security concerns, specific applications, or because of the realization that public clouds are not as cost-effective as users often think, made-to-order storage clouds offer very real alternatives to the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and their peers.

CRN is offering a look at 24 offerings that provide major components to storage clouds that solution providers can build. There are many more, of course, ranging from external cache controllers to cloud storage gateways that help keep cloud-based storage private and secure.

However, if a partner prefers to avoid the do-cloud-yourself step, there are many options for helping customers take advantage of pre-built clouds. CRN profiled 16 such offerings earlier this week.

Here's a look at the possibilities.