Seagate's i365 offers SaaS option for EVault

TechWorld.com - Seagate Technology LLC's newly-formed i365 subsidiary has announced that its EVault online backup and recovery software is now available in Europe either as a SaaS offering or as a managed service offering.

There has been an evident trend toward software as a service and managed services in the security industry, but storage as a service is still relatively rare in Europe according to research firm IDC.

"The European storage-as-a-service market is still in its infancy and is rather fragmented with small local SaaS offerings," said Carla Arend, a European storage software and services analyst at IDC. "There is no clear leader for the market yet, and it is wide open for a targeted company like i365 to capture early-adopter customers."

Arend said that i365 is investing in the market at the right time.

Essentially, the EVault SaaS and EVault Managed Service offerings provide users with automated online backup recovery services, protecting both servers and laptops and desktops. In order to improve performance efficiencies, only new and updated data at the block level is compressed, encrypted, and transmitted offsite to one of i365's European data centers, where further de-duplication takes place.

Customers are given full access to their data via a Web interface, so they can manage and restore their data in the event of data loss. The company says that other features of the SaaS offering include "flexible packaging and pricing, easy deployment and management, broad platform support, and multiple options for data recovery." Around-the-clock phone support is also available in English, French, German and Spanish.

I365 also said it was extending its top tier, SAS 70 Type II, and ISO 9001:2000 certified data protection infrastructure with data centers across Europe, notably in the U.K. and Luxembourg. Germany will be added at the end of the year, followed by other countries next year.

I365 had not responded to requests for comment from Techworld at the time of the deadline for posting this story.

Seagate acquired the backup and recovery assets of EVault after announcing in December 2006 that it was buying the company. EVault provided an online network backup service and recovery and data protection products, and it specialized in on-site and in-lab data recovery for corrupted or inaccessible storage devices.

Since the acquisition, Seagate has expanded EVault's focus from just small and midsize organizations to include large enterprises.

I365 is a newly formed Seagate subsidiary intended to run EVault, as well as MetaLINCS, and the Seagate Recovery Services companies. The companies had previously been operating as a division of Seagate under the name Seagate Services.

I365 says it is aggressively ramping up its European sales and customer support organizations and its partner network in order to support both the SaaS and software products for data protection.

There were no details yet on pricing.