SafeData Cloud Runs IBM i DR and Production Workloads

Corrected: May 24, 2011

by Alex Woodie

Data Storage Corp. (DSC) last week unveiled SafeData Cloud, a new IBM i, AIX, and Windows cloud offering. The new infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering will enable customers to run not only their IBM i or Windows disaster recovery (DR) workloads, but also their everyday production workloads, providing another outsourcing options for organizations that don't want the hassle of running their own hardware.

SafeData, which was bought by DSC last June, has traditionally been associated with online backups and hosted DR and high availability (HA). The company used electronic vaulting software from i365 and HA replication software from Vision Solutions to get its customers' critical data off production Power Systems and X64 machines.

In some cases, SafeData would supply the backup machines that were being kept current with the i365 or Vision software, and assisted customers with recovery or failovers if needed. In other cases, the company would simply manage the vaulting or data replication occurring on its customers' gear, and stand by with assistance in the event of a disaster.

Now, DSC is taking SafeData's investment in IBM i and Windows servers and its expertise in hosting business systems to the next level with SafeData Cloud, an IaaS offering that can be used to run both production and DR workloads in IBM i, AIX, Windows, Linux, and VMware environments.

"With the increasing demand for cloud-based IaaS, and with a large investment already made in high availability and virtualized backup and recovery services, our SafeData Cloud solution is a natural extension of our managed services offering," says Matthew Grosso, EVP of technical operations and engineering at DSC.

Customers can use the SafeData Cloud for whatever they want, Grosso says. "For production, a client could essentially outsource their IT applications into one of our data centers, on DSC hardware," he says. "Or a client can use a 'capacity on demand' concept and activate servers for development projects, seasonal usage, etc."

DSC operates four carrier-class data centers. They are located in Garden City, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; and Warwick, Rhode Island, the former SafeData headquarters. Each offers network connectivity, 24/7 monitoring and management, and backup services.

The SafeData Cloud provides access to i5/OS V5R4, IBM i 6.1, and IBM i 7.1 in an LPARed environment. These IBM i resources can be provisioned for a variety of services, ranging from basic DR to vaulted backup and recovery, from managed HA to full outsourcing of production systems.

While DSC has many customers using its hosted DR and HA services, it doesn't have any customers utilizing the SafeData Cloud for production IBM i workloads, Grosso says. Only production Windows workloads have been loaded into the SafeData Cloud at this point. However, DSC expects to go live soon with customers who will utilize the IBM i hosting capabilities of the SafeData Cloud for production workloads, he says.

DSC uses a mix of vaulting and replication software for hosted DR and HA. This includes vaulting software from i365 and Asigra, and HA replication software from Vision. This list may not stay the same for long. "We are also evaluating some new vendors in the market," Grosso says.

Customers can subscribe to SafeData Cloud for set periods of time. Subscription pricing details were not shared by DSC. For more information, see the vendor's website at www.dscorp.net.

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This article was corrected. SafeData is not operated as a subsidiary of DSC, as the story initially stated. IT Jungle regrets the error.

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