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Technology giant IBM announced the launch of a data virtualization service for its portfolio of cloud-based enterprise offerings in collaboration with data management specialist Actifio.
The SmartCloud Data Virtualization (SCDV) service helps ease management of industry regulation requirements through backup and restore analytics and reporting and enables multiple retention points and prioritized application recovery to help improve recovery of critical data.
The platform is designed to provide virtually instant recovery and protection of critical data while still allowing it to be used for other use cases. Using snapshot technology within a managed service environment, the service can help make data more available for recovery, backup, analytics, testing and development.
The service facilitates optimization of storage capacity and data center utilization by creating only a single data copy for multiple purposes, and is available as a stand-alone service or in conjunction with IBM’s server recovery and backup solutions.
In addition, the SmartCloud Data Virtualization portal provides self service to support faster and more efficient changes to the backup environment, and IBM offers a range of onsite, offsite and hybrid information protection solutions based on the company’s scalable, on-demand services architecture.
“IBM’s SmartCloud Data Virtualization combines the power of Actifio’s data virtualization platform with IBM’s Resiliency technology and operational reliability,” Laurence Guihard-Joly, general manager for IBM’s business continuity and resiliency services, said in a statement. “As part of our growing portfolio of cloud software, services and expertise that help clients tackle any IT or business challenge with confidence, security and trust, SCDV will not only offer many customers faster recovery times at better price points, it will enable them to leverage their protected data as a business asset rather than simply an insurance policy.”
By creating only a single copy of data that can be leveraged for backup, server replication, application recovery or test or development use cases, the service helps reduce storage space and reclaim storage capacity, the company said.
“We’re excited IBM has chosen our platform for this strategic cloud initiative, and to be working closely with them to bring more customers the power of our combined offering as they move to take advantage of the transformative economics of the cloud,” Actifio founder and CEO Ash Ashutosh said in a statement. “The bottom line here is thousands of IBM customers are now able to achieve better SLA’s for more mission critical applications, accelerating their business and their path into the cloud.”