Cloud continuityNew cloud continuity solution for SMBs

Published 26 October 2011

Research by Contingency Planning, Strategic Research Corp., and DTI/PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the effect of downtime and data and application loss on small to medium enterprises caused 70 percent of small firms to go out of business within a year of the event; a new cloud-based continuity service addresses this problem

Mountain View, California-based Axcient, Inc., a player in the data backup, business continuity, and disaster recovery field which targets the Small and Mid-Sized Business (SMB) market, the other day launched its Axcient Cloud Continuity, which, the company says, enables businesses to launch all of their servers in Axcient’s Cloud with just a couple of clicks.

“With Cloud Continuity, SMBs now have total business continuity for the first time,” the company says. When local servers fail, users can run a virtual office on Axcient’s cloud platform allowing employees to continue working on their data and applications — from any Internet-enabled device at any location – regardless of what happened to being the server down.

Cloud Continuity does not require users to make changes to their network environment, install software, or make upfront investments.

The company offers Cloud Continuity as a monthly service.

Cloud Continuity is built on HP hardware and will be available in early November 2011.

Those who have tried the service appear to like it. “Traditional backup systems just don’t offer the level of service that Axcient does. We were using both Acronis and Symantec, but had problems getting them to do what we wanted,” said Shane Linde, network engineer at the Computer Center. “The appeal of Axcient is that, with one device and one vendor, we provide customers with ultimate continuity. For financial, legal, and healthcare practices with strict recovery time objectives and compliance requirements, or any business that can’t afford a day of downtime, the additional protection of having data and applications live and accessible in the cloud gives them a backup plan for their backup plans.”

Axcient exceeds my expectations once again with Cloud Continuity, creating an extremely easy-to-use, cloud-based failover capability that enables me to quickly launch a virtual office and keep my SMB clients up and running all the time,” said Eric Gorman, owner of Wappinger Falls, New York-based Integrated Enterprise Solutions, Inc. “It’s exactly what SMBs and their managed service providers need: the confidence that their data, applications, and systems are always protected and accessible, ensuring businesses have total uptime and continuity.”