ZettaGrid's Nathan Harmon
Perth-based cloud service provider, Zettagrid, has launched an Australian first disaster recovery replication solution built on the Veeam platform.
The new service offers image-based virtual machine (VM) replication, which the company said gives channel partners the ability to offer recovery site, data synchronisation, accessibility and activation for part or all of a customer's virtual environment.
The Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS), called Cloud Connect Replication, allows end users to replicate VMs into Zettagrid’s cloud and switch to those VM replicas if the main site goes down.
Zettagrid operates on a channel only go to market model and the company’s managing director, Nathan Harman, told ARN that one of the internal requirements in relation to this was that all processes were automated.
“We don’t release a product unless it is automated end-to-end. We needed a commercial model and an API access into the product which would allow us to automate,” he said.
“We have been heading down the backup and DR path for a while now and saw this as another piece of the puzzle in terms of the range of solutions that could work for our channel partners.
Harman explained that the solution is "one step up" from backup as it turns the backup itself on as a virtual machine in Zettagrid’s virtualised environment.
“It is not at the top level of disaster recovery in terms of bit level replication so it has filled a space in our portfolio.”
Harman said that due to the company’s five year relationship with Veeam, deploying the solution based on the vendor’s technology was a natural fit but there were other factors involved.
“They did a couple of things before anybody else, they came out with a subscription model for their channel partners and opened up API access early as well,” he explained.
This allowed Zettagrid to then offer subscription billing to its channel partners and crucially, automate the solution.
While based on VMware technology at Zettagrid’s end, Harman said channel partners can use the service with any hypervisor they choose.
The solution is sold at subscription pricing of $15 per VM per month, plus storage costs. Zettagrid partners with Veeam and VMware, amongst others.
