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Online storage services took the spotlight in IBM’s semiannual services product release this week, thanks to Big Blue’s recent acquisition of online backup pioneer Arsenal Digital.
“The online backup opportunity is going to be really strong for us in ’08,” said Adam Trunkey, spokesman for IBM Information Protection Services.
The additions to the mid-market Express Advantage services portfolio include two online storage services offerings targeted at data backup and e-mail continuity. Other new service offerings focus on Internet security threats and new server options.
The new IBM Information Protection Services include Remote Data Protection Express and Data Retention and Archival — E-Mail Management Express.
The offsite data backup and recovery service for Windows servers and PCs is aimed at distributed and remote environments and “includes all of the hardware, software, monitoring and management that mid-sized businesses need to implement an effective data protection strategy,” IBM said. The service includes data de-duplicationand encryption.
Pricing for the service, which is based on Arsenal technology, will run $5 to $6 per GB per month, Trunkey estimates.
The e-mail offerings include continuity and archiving for Lotus Notes and Exchange and wireless support to help with outages and e-mail retrieval in case of e-discovery and other compliance issues. Pricing is volume-based and can vary by IBM business partner, but is expected to be in the range of $1.80 per mailbox per month for 500 mailboxes and $1.30 for 5,000 mailboxes.
The services are available in the G-7 countries of the U.S., UK, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Japan. Trunkey said IBM expects to offer a data center-class product based on the technology later this year.
After years of false starts, the online storage services market has begun to catch on in the last year, with IBM and EMC among those leading the charge. The emerging market has not been without hiccups, however, witness HP’s recent service outage.
IBM’s new security offerings include bundled services, penetration testing and server monitoring and management, and Big Blue is also offering new options to optimize server environments.
