CenturyLink, the third-largest telecommunications and Internet provider in the United States (in terms of lines served) behind AT&T and Verizon, revealed Dec. 8 that it has acquired Canadian disaster recovery software maker DataGardens.
Financial details were not included in the announcement.
CenturyLink, headquartered in Monroe, La., reported $18 billion in revenue in 2012. The company provides communications and data services to residential, business, governmental and wholesale customers.
DataGardens’ flagship software suite, SafeHaven, offers customers what is now becoming a hot item: cloud-based Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). The new-gen software and surrounding intellectual property will fill a hole in the CenturyLink services list.
Enterprise IT is increasingly turning to DRaaS providers to overcome traditional budget, resource and complexity challenges. Forrester Research’s recent Wave report on DRaaS reported the following: “During the past few years, enterprise DRaaS adoption has grown steadily to 19 percent today, with another 22 percent planning to adopt.”
At this rate, it won’t be long until half or more of all enterprise IT will be subscribing to DR services in the cloud. However, the move to cloud-based DR can be complex in itself, and every company has its own challenges that it might not anticipate.
Go here to see a slide show on deploying DRaaS and accompanying best practices.
CenturyLink, a member of the S&P 500 index, operates as a local exchange carrier and Internet service provider in U.S. markets. It also provides long-distance telephone service.
DataGardens’ 15 Edmonton, Alberta-based employees will be joining CenturyLink.