i365 Runs Backup To The Cloud

i365 has announced the EVault Offsite Replication Service, a cloud storage service for mid-size businesses. The service provides an opportunity for customers to mirror a copy of their onsite backup i365 Cloud. I365's Evault Offsite Replication Service, comprised of a network ofTier III and IV SAS 70 Type II certified data centers, will beavailable November 1st.

According to George Hoenig, Vice President of Product Operations for i365, the key piece in allowing the seamless mirroring of on-site backup data to the i365 cloud storage infrastructure is an appliance called "The Edge." Hoenig says, "The Edge is the connection between the on-premises solution and the cloud. When we introduce The Edge appliance we begin to blur the lines between those two locations.  Right now we produce a turn-key solution."

Hoenig says that it's important to understand precisely the role that i365 EVault is intended to play. The service is intended to be a second layer of data protection, with the cloud providing safe, remote storage of data that still lives on the customer network. Hoenig describes the process by which the customer might make use of data backed up to the i365 cloud. "If you've backed up to our servers, you call us to begin the process, we verify the disaster, and then we run virtualized applications to let you get at your data through a VPN tunnel," he says. He points out that, when you're backed up to on-premises storage, you first fail back to your site. I365, he says, offers both 24 and 48 hour SLAs based on the business need of the client. Hoenig takes pains to point out what the EVault software is not: "This isn't automatic fail detection with sub-ten minute failover. We store the data very efficiently and de-duped, so we have to restore the data before we make it available."

In addition to providing remote data backup, Hoenig says that the i365 EVault brings easy configuration and deployment to customer sites. "With some solutions the customer has to figure out how to integrate and choose between many on-premises and cloud-based offering," he says. "A strength of the i365 model is that there is a single architecture. We think this is a powerful integrated solution for the customer."

i365 has been in the backup and recovery marketplace for over a decade. Hoenig says that the company wants to blur the line between EVault Software and SaaS. This gives a vault on-premise and an identical vault in the cloud. Recovering from a server on-site is going to be faster than getting it across the WAN. The on-site version is faster, the remote version is more secure against major disaster, and together the customer gets the best of both.Hoenig says that EVault is a hybrid model from a technology standpoint and from a purchase point of view. There's a purchase component as well as a license component. There's a passive vault in the cloud that can be chosen as the backup site depending on the needs of the incident. There's no need for a truck in front of your facility, it's all done across the network.

A steady stream of natural disaster stories should have reminded managers and administrators that even the most comprehensive backup plan can fall prey to failure if a natural disaster - hurricane, fire, flood, or riot - strikes where both servers and backup media are stored. Keeping key copies of the operating environment in a remote location can be a very simple project with the EVault system, and the geographical separation can be the quality that lies between success and failure when a widespread, critical disaster strikes and the organization's  customer and critical business data is shoved off-line in a secure location.