StorSimple, a leading provider of cloud storage solutions, is one of those vendors who believes in putting a lot of information on its website, so it’s readily available. This is helpful for clients – or potential clients – seeking to make up their own mind about the services, and it’s much appreciated.

As the company’s site says, one major challenge IT organizations face as far as protecting their data is the fact that many legacy technologies weren’t designed to handle protecting data “in a unified, cost-effective manner at scale.”  

As officials contend, “Most backups start as on-array snapshots (high cost, short lifespan) and meander through virtual tape libraries (VTL), deduplication, encryption, and physical tape before finally finding their resting place in an off-site vault.”

Bottom line: Huge headache for IT.  

To alleviate such stress and inefficiency, StorSimple offers an iSCSI storage device with integrated data protection, primary and cloud storage for data protection. What it does is give servers storage volumes protected using an integrated management framework, which lets users “manage backup copies through their lifecycle” in various formats using the cloud.

The company spells out the advantages of its approach: eliminating backup windows caused by massive data transfers over the network; integrating on-site backups and off-site backups with a single management interface and no tape; and allowing for simplified DR by using cloud backups from secondary data centers or the cloud and securing all data written to the cloud using encryption, among others.

Without getting too technical, basically the StorSimple appliance connects to your data center network and, as company officials explain, “exposes storage volumes comprised of

integrated storage within the appliance and cloud storage to your servers.”

Fast online restores are another advantage of their approach, since backup copies are available for immediate use, without having to ship media and restore to a staging area. And by deduplicating and compressing all primary and backup data, company officials say, “and storing off-site backup copies in a cloud storage service, StorSimple allows you to keep a larger number of on-site and off-site backup copies.”

A couple weeks ago TMCnet reported that StorSimple was honored with the title of Microsoft (News - Alert) BixSpark Partner of the Year. StorSimple officials say the company “works to bring the benefits of the cloud to on-premises applications without forcing the migration of applications into the cloud.”

The annual awards pay respect to those Microsoft partners who deliver products that directly speak to customer challenges