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Zmanda is adding new features to its cloud-based backup offering to better compete with market leaders EMC (NYSE: EMC) and Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC).
Zmanda uses open source-based backup software and Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Simple Storage Service (S3) to best EMC’s MozyPro and Symantec on price. Now the company hopes its latest features will catch on with small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to back up their Microsoft Windows environments while meeting security and compliance demands.
CEO Chander Kant said Zmanda is adding support for cloud backup of Sun’s (NASDAQ: JAVA) MySQL and Microsoft SharePoint on top of its existing support for Windows File Servers, SQL Servers, Microsoft Exchange, virtual machines and Oracle.
Other new features include geography control, selective restore, and security and performance enhancements.
The geography control feature lets users select the specific geographical location where they would like backup data to be stored for optimal disaster recovery protection and to comply with local data retention laws such as the EU Data Protection Directive.
Selective restore lets users recover an individual file from a large directory rather than having to restore the entire directory to recover a single file. And Windows Security Certificate-based encryption has been added for data security.
Zmanda Cloud Backup is based on the open source Amanda backup software, which Kant said saves the company “the hardest part of development.” Kant said the service is easy to set up and use, requiring that users simply decide “what, where and when” to back up. Files are stored in a native format, so they can be accessed even without the service.
Kant said Zmanda’s target market and cost advantages have helped it grow during the long economic downturn. “We are doing very well financially, as we are the low-cost provider and everyone needs backup,” he said.
Kant said about 10 percent of Zmanda’s customer base is using the online service, or about 100 customers.
ZCB costs 20 cents a GB per month (25 cents in the EU) for data transfer and storage on the cloud — half the cost of MozyPro — plus a monthly charge of $4.95 per account for the protection of an unlimited number of Windows servers. For more information, visit www.zmanda.com/cloud-backup.html.
EMC had its own news in the space today, announcing that Mozy will power McAfee’s (NYSE: MFE) new consumer online backup service.
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