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The cloud has become so pervasive that right now there are probably ten new cloud storage products for every one traditional storage product. These are some of the more interesting ones.
VMTurbo
VMTurbo Operations Manager is all about workload management for cloud and virtualized environments. Companies and service providers can use VMTurbo to correctly size and then adjust the needed infrastructure to provide the desired level of performance as usage rates ramp up and down.
In a large operation, for example, there might be thousands of virtual machines (VMs). Each can consume different amounts of RAM, CPU and disk IOPS. VMTurbo offers insight into resource consumption and automatically allocates resources and places workloads to eliminate bottlenecks.
dinCloud
DinCloud stands for “desktops in the cloud.” The company focuses on helping small businesses get onto the cloud.
It starts by evaluating the existing IT infrastructure to determine the best way to rapidly migrate the business to the cloud. It then sets small businesses up with an online cloud orchestration and management platform known as dinManage. It also provides specific hosted services which include dinHVD (hosted virtual desktops), dinServer (hosted virtual servers) and dinBackup (NetApp-based enterprise cloud storage).
“Traditional disaster recovery solutions that back up to a secondary data center carry significant infrastructure and management costs, something that many businesses, especially small to mid-sized business, cannot afford,” said Ali Din, senior vice president of dinCloud.
KineticD
KineticD’s value proposition is to speed up and simplify cloud backup. One way it does this is via the agentless backup capabilities of KineticCloud Backup for Servers. This makes it possible to manage hybrid cloud data backup processes from one backup console.
KineticD is finding traction among cloud service providers, as well as SMBs. The agentless technology comes at $6.95 per month for the server and is available to users of KineticCloud Backup.
Tarmin
Tarmin’s GridBank is a cloud storage data management platform that helps organizations manage their existing infrastructures or build multi-site, petabyte-scale, geographically distributed data repositories.
One feature, known as GridSync, provides local-to-the-cloud replication technology. It also allows centralized, policy-based control of local data volumes, as well as encryption and compression across a range of devices. All in all, GridBank addresses object storage, global namespace, archiving, replicating, searching and big data analytics.
VeriStor
VeriStor Cloud Backup uses CommVault software to provide cloud-based backup services for physical and virtual servers. Instead of per-agent licensing fees, it uses a per-TB monthly capacity model. It comes with tech support from VeriStor which alerts users about backup configuration, job management and monitoring issues.
Users can chose either local backup with cloud archive or cloud backup with cloud archive. Those with large data sets choosing the former option receive an appliance that provides encrypted replication to a secondary off-site VeriStor Cloud facility for long-term archive and retention. Those choosing the latter option, which is better for smaller data sets, back up to the cloud and then have their data replicated to another facility.
“We’ve paired the convenience and cost benefits of the cloud with a customizable cloud backup architecture that caters to the variety of data sets and environments that exist in organizations today,” said Omar Torres, Director, Virtualization & Cloud Solutions, VeriStor.
Asigra
The company is making the biggest deal about its cloud-to-cloud backup function. For example, it can protect a complete Salesforce.com database, including accounts, contacts, leads, campaigns and custom objects. And it can recover either the data alone or the schema and data.
“The cloud delivery model for backup/recovery is increasingly being considered for enterprise recovery requirements — especially for desktop/laptops and remote offices, and for some organizations that are seeking tapeless implementations,” said Dave Russell, an analyst at Gartner.
Egnyte
Egnyte offers cloud file-sharing services including a new cloud-agnostic storage approach called Cloud Control. This high-speed service allows users to access files whether they are located in the corporate data center or in the cloud. Cloud Control can scale to thousands of users.
Cloud Control enables users to stitch together storage devices and cloud types into a global namespace that encompasses third-party storage cloud such as AWS S3, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, Egnyte’s own public cloud and/or storage behind the firewall. It will be publicly available in early 2013.
