Microsoft Offers Disaster Recovery Alternative with StorSimple Virtual Array
Microsoft Azure has released a public preview of the on-premises StorSimple Virtual Array. The idea behind the StorSimple Virtual Array is to contain your disaster recovery tools within a virtual machine.
Microsoft says that the StorSimple Virtual Array will work with either Hyper-V or VMware. It’s being described as a cost-effective, lightweight disaster recovery solution for remote offices.
The new StorSimple Virtual Array allows organizations to seamlessly integrate disaster recovery data into the cloud.
The suite works by simplifying data protection with cloud based snapshots. Best of all, since Microsoft Azure is used to store your backup data, your business can recover from a disaster scenario anywhere in the world.
“The StorSimple Virtual Array can be downloaded from the StorSimple Manager in the Azure portal and installed on a VM configured on a Hyper-V or VMware hypervisor,” says a Microsoft Azure blog post announcing the preview of the product.
“The StorSimple Virtual Array is configurable as a NAS (using SMB) or a SAN (using iSCSI) device,” concluded the post,” adds the post.
Those that store data in Microsoft Azure will be billed using the same meters that a StorSimple 8000 appliance would get billed against. This includes the Azure Blob Storage meter as well.
Businesses can use the virtual machine for targeted file sharing or collaboration scenarios. The new StorSimple Virtual Array even supports small database workloads. Best of all, when your organization implements the StorSimple Virtual Array, you can manage this device from the Microsoft Azure portal.
Small businesses looking for a seamless way to backup their data using the cloud should at least test drive the StorSimple Virtual Array to see if it meets their needs. In order to get started, you will need an Azure Account, available resources in your hypervisor and some free space on your storage infrastructure.
