IBM has developed a software toolkit, which enables storage systems to access and use third-party private and/or public clouds for data migration, backup or file sharing.
The toolkit uses an object storage interface that permits clients to drag and drop files to be backed up or shared on the cloud(s) of their choice — independent of the vendor.
ICStore addresses space efficiency, data synchronization, and metadata coordination when storing data redundantly on object storage. Once a cloud fails, the back-up cloud immediately responds and ensures data availability. No synchronization or communication among cloud clients is needed due to the innovative approach that adds redundancy and tolerates failures.
IBM’s patent-pending invention overcomes concerns about data resiliency, security and service continuity via an innovative technique which seamlessly stores and moves data across multiple clouds. The method employs a cloud-of-clouds approach that invokes the resilience of separate clouds to offer stronger protection against service outages and data loss than any single cloud can deliver.
“Our cloud-of-clouds invention can help clients avoid service outages and security incidents that impact the reliability and security of individual clouds,” said IBM Fellow Evangelos Eleftheriou.
The combination of the toolkit and SoftLayer, an IBM company, enables clients to overcome limits in their cloud storage capacity by dynamically routing to an alternative storage system such as migrating from a remote public-cloud to on-premise private-cloud-optimizing the overall efficiency of data storage management.
The technology was demonstrated in June at the IBM Edge 2013 conference in Las Vegas in conjunction with the IBM Storwize platform and is available for early trial testing, said IBM in a statement.
IBM cloud has already helped more than 20,000 clients around the world. Today, IBM has more than 100 cloud SaaS solutions, 37,000 experts with industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of more than 25 global cloud delivery centers. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $6 billion in acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives.
