Microsoft to acquire cloud-integrated storage provider StorSimple

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Lucas Mearian.

Microsoft announced today that it will acquire cloud storage vendor StorSimple. The terms of the purchase were not disclosed. The move is designed to advance Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision and enable its customers to better leverage hybrid cloud computing, the two companies said.

StorSimple, which opened three and a half years ago and began shipping appliances this spring, is among a relatively new breed of companies to offer an appliance that stores data onsite while replicating or mirroring it to an offsite, public cloud storage provider. Among other companies selling cloud-connected appliances are Nasuni and TwinStrata…

Cloud-connected appliances are particularly popular with businesses that have branch offices because the technology allows data to be accessed quickly at a branch while being stored locally for corporate and disaster recovery purposes.

StorSimple uses encryption to protect data that’s sent over the Internet to cloud providers such as Microsoft’s Windows Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Rackspace. StorSimple addresses WAN bandwidth issues by using data reduction technologies such as compression and de-duplication to eliminate multiple copies of data…

Read more from the source @ http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9232447/Microsoft_to_acquire_cloud_integrated_storage_provider_StorSimple