CA Plans SaaS Version Of ARCserve On Azure Cloud

The result will be a hybrid data protection offering that gives customers the ability to protect their data on local storage appliances as well as in the Azure cloud, said Steve Fairbanks, vice president of product management for CA's ARCserve and ERwin product families.

The offering protects data in the cloud using industry-standard compression algorithms based on the 128-bit, 192-bit, and 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard).

"Customers will be able to take a snapshot of their disk and store it locally to get it back real fast in case of a failure," Fairbanks said. "But if there's a catastrophic event, customers need offsite protection. We will be providing both from a single subscription fee."

Customers will only be able to access the new service through CA's indirect sales channel partners, Fairbanks said. The do not have to have their own account on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Instead, their subscription fees will include the cloud, with CA handling all the provisioning and access costs, he said.

Solution providers who bring the technology to customers will receive monthly recurring revenue, he said.

CA ARCserve consists of four parts, including backup, disk-to-disk backup, high availability, and replication offerings, Fairbanks said. The new SaaS version of ARCserve with the Microsoft Azure cloud is based on the CA ARCserve disk-to-disk version, he said.

The SaaS version of CA ARCserve was jointly built by CA and Microsoft, said Mike Crest, general manager of CA's data management business.

ARCserve is the first data protection application to be built to be served via Azure, Crest said. "And at this point, our intention is to run with Azure on this," he said. "There may be other platforms for us in the future, but I can't say at this time."

Going forward, CA plans to do more with ARCserve, storage, and the cloud, Crest said. "The next version of ARCserve will come this fall with more technology to do more with the cloud," he said. "For example, we plan to enable MSPs to better leverage the technology for their customers."

CA ARCserve on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform is scheduled to be available in beta in early Summer, and released in the second half of 2011, Fairbanks said. CA may offer a 30-day free trial period, but the details have yet to be decided yet.