 "IBM Launches Smart Cloud For DR, Data Archive")
IBM has announced new cloud services that enable clients to protect, store and retrieve their most critical data in minutes versus days in the event of a disaster.
The new IBM SmartCloud Resilience services allow customers to protect their data and applications faster, cheaper and in a more flexible manner than they could before within a traditional datacentre environment.
Historically, companies created numerous images of servers and applications at running at multiple sites, adding to the complexity and cost of IT management. Now, the IBM SmartCloud offers companies of various sizes a virtual and physical server recovery service that continuously replicates their applications and all associated data on a secure cloud infrastructure. This enables them to have their business up and running in minutes after declaring an outage in their IT infrastructure.
By using the IBM cloud, organisations can more easily and cost effectively provide continuous service to their customers and ensure that their data and applications are protected and secure. IBM’s cloud allows clients to securely manage and balance workloads, lower application and system downtime, and reduce data loss. These services help clients to avoid capital expense by more efficiently monitoring operational expenses and service levels, reducing the burden on IT staff.
“Now more than ever, companies are relying on a massive amount of data to run their businesses, storing it longer and retrieving it as needed,” said Rick Ruiz, general manager of IBM’s Business Continuity and Resiliency Services. “This creates a need for a business resilience strategy that will ensure continuous operation and create a competitive advantage to enable growth opportunities. Our new cloud services bring flexibility, scalability, and rapid provisioning to help accomplish that.”
The new services include IBM SmartCloud Virtualised Server Recovery – The server recovery service increases the reliability and efficiency of recovery to help practically eliminate business downtime, and minimise data loss. Provides clients with an easy-to-use portal for remote access to rapidly bring back their business on IBM’s recovery infrastructure in case of outage, replicating both server software and associated data continuously; eliminates the issues of recovery on physical non-like hardware and travel to disaster sites.
It also includes IBM SmartCloud Archive which is designed specifically to meet stringent privacy and regulatory compliance, from advanced search and indexing and retrieval, to eDiscovery capabilities. Provides clients with an advanced document and records management system to deal with structured and unstructured content; control over rising data storage costs; and improved availability of critical business content.
The new services complement IBM’s existing SmartCloud Managed Backup offering. The cloud-based managed backup services provide flexible, automatic management and monitoring of backup and recovery processes, including hardware, software, installation and support, and can be delivered in a public, private or hybrid cloud environment.
This service can be combined with the Archive and Virtualised services for storage, data protection and replication. Other cloud-based business continuity tools include the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Suite for Unified Recovery (6.2), which provides disaster recovery software that can be enabled as a cloud storage option.