Unitrends Acquires Yuruware: Disaster Recovery Tech Runs VMs, Virtual Networks In Cloud

Data protection and disaster recovery technology developer Unitrends Thursday said it has acquired a pre-startup developer of technology that allows easy disaster recovery using public clouds.

That developer, Australia-based Yuruware, provides the ability to easily run virtual machines and virtual networks in nearly any public cloud, including Amazon Web Services and OpenStack clouds, with Microsoft Azure on the road map, said Mark Campbell, chief strategy and technology officer for Columbia, S.C.-based Unitrends.

Yuruware, which is working with an early version of its technology with a limited number of customers, provides two key features that Unitrends can add to its disaster recovery offering, Campbell told CRN.

[Related: Unitrends Buys PHD Virtual To Expand SMB Disaster Recovery, Take On Veeam ]

The first is easy machine transformation, or the ability to spin up a virtual machine in a cloud. "Unitrends today has the technology to spin up a server in physical and virtualized environments," he said. "Now we'll be able to add the cloud as a destination."

The second is network transformation, or the ability to translate and optimize on-premise virtual networks to allow them to run on the cloud, Campbell said. "Everyone using VMware, or Microsoft or Xen, is using virtual networks," he said. "If you have five virtual machines, you need some way for them to talk to each other."

Unitrends plans to add Yuruware's machine transformation and network transformation technology to its existing Reliable DR product line.

Reliable DR, which Unitrends got with its December acquisition of PHD Virtual, is a recovery assurance offering that certifies servers or even entire infrastructures that are backed up can be recovered, Campbell said.

"Reliable DR can not only automatically do a recovery, but it can also test the recovery and provide a RPO [recovery point objective]," he said. "Backups are heavily automated, but recoveries are typically not."

The acquisition is a huge win for Unitrends, said Mike Champa, vice president at Retrofit Technologies, a Milford, Mass.-based MSP that works with Unitrends and Microsoft Azure.

Cloud disaster recovery solutions are a fairly new part of the IT market, but the more companies move to the cloud, the more important it becomes to do disaster recovery to clouds, Champa told CRN.

"But the tools to do it today are limited," he said. "Backup appliances are good. But when backing up to the cloud, customers may not want to recover to a local appliance."

NEXT: Unitrends' Plans To Integrate Yuruware Technology

Customers are looking for help to implement disaster recovery-as-a-service, which requires tools that MSPs can use to provide rapid deployment to the cloud, Champa said. "We'll be taking full advantage of Unitrends' new Yuruware technology, he said. "We will add it to our portfolio."

Campbell said the acquisition of Yuruware is a technology buy, and not a product or revenue stream purchase. "Yuruware has product out for a few customers, but it's not yet ready for prime time," he said. "We will incorporate its technology into ours and scale it to the channel."

Campbell said Unitrends expects the Yuruware technology to be available in about nine months.

Unitrends first learned about Yuruware via investment firm Insight Venture Partners, which last fall acquired Unitrends, Campbell said.

"One reason we're so excited to be working with Insight is they are so good at helping to find new partnerships," he said.

PUBLISHED MAY 29, 2014