Quest And StorSimple Collaborate On Cloud-Based Backup

In an attempt to provide users of Quest Software Inc.'s vRanger software for virtualized systems the ability to back up data to the cloud, the company has announced a partnership with StorSimple, which makes the StorSimple Hybrid Cloud Storage Appliance. The combination of the two products will give vRanger users the ability to back up VMware virtual machines to disk with automated cloud archiving and storage tiering, as well as virtual machine-level restores from the cloud.

At present, the partnership consists primarily of the two companies doing what they can to ensure that their products work together. However, users may want more than that for the integration between the two products to be successful, says Dave Russell, research vice president of storage technologies and strategies for Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn., consultancy.

"The mid-market might be receptive to pre-integrated cloud bundles in that, in this case, it combines the backup application, the onsite storage solution, and then lets them choose their cloud service provider for offsite protection," he says. "The vRanger product is well known, and if channel partners bundle this and StorSimple and make it easy to have a cloud contract, then this could be an attractive option. It becomes a hybrid cloud option, combining on-site local protection and storage along with a remote cloud target."

Quest approached StorSimple because it was starting to see demand from its customers for the ability to use the public cloud as a target for backups, says John Maxwell, vice president of product management for data protection at the Aliso Viejo, Calif., company. Because the StorSimple appliance meant that users could get the same sort of backup performance that they could if the software were running natively, it helps provide the best of both worlds for its users, he said.

Each company said that the agreement with the other company was not exclusive, but that it considered the other company to be the best option for such a partnership. For example, while StorSimple has an open application programming interface, and does work with multiple other vendors, the agreement with Quest is the one with which StorSimple is going to be putting its resources, says Ian Howells, chief marketing officer for the Santa Clara, Calif., company.

In addition, the StorSimple appliance is the only hybrid cloud storage product that holds VMware Ready certification, which makes it a good fit for the vRanger VMware backup product, the companies said. What the companies have actually done thus far is test the products together.

Users who wish to run the Quest vRanger software in conjunction with the StorSimple Hybrid Cloud Storage Appliance will need to approach each company, or one of its dealers, separately, to purchase them, Maxwell says. The companies are now announcing to their customers and partners that the products work together, in the hopes that some of their channel partners and resellers will take on the task of selling and supporting the products jointly, he says. The combined products will be cloud vendor-agnostic.

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