Microsoft, Iron Mountain Team on CloudRecovery

Microsoft (MSFT) has teamed with data protection specialist Iron Mountain to offer an automated cloud storage to customers using its System Center. The solution enables Microsoft's Data Protection Manager (DPM) to automatically archive data using Cloud Recovery, a new service from Iron Mountain Digital, the technology arm of Iron Mountain.

"Iron Mountain Digital and Microsoft are uniquely qualified to help customers manage and protect their data," said John Clancy, president of Iron Mountain Digital. "Our strategic relationship with Microsoft combines their strengths in platforms and applications with Iron Mountain's strengths in enterprise storage-as-a-service and disaster recovery - delivering customers a more cost-effective backup and archiving solution from vendors they can trust."

Microsoft customers can create data retention policies ranging from 30 days to 7 years and DPM will automatically send the data to Iron Mountain's data centers for archiving.

"Hybrid approaches, which include some on-premise control of software and/or hardware coupled with off-premise services or infrastructure, are becoming popular to overcome data protection challenges and reduce storage costs," said Lauren Whitehouse, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.