Microsoft announced the acquisition of recovery service InMage in a bid to integrate the startup's technology into its Azure cloud-based backup service.
Microsoft is improving its cloud-based backup and recovery service in the face of increasing competition from startups like Box and tech titans Google. The Redmond-based software giant announced Friday that it has acquired San Jose -based data protection software company, InMage, to enhance its cloud service operations.
InMage develops software that provides backup, disaster recovery and continuous data protection for cloud services. The company was founded in 2001 and raised about $36 million in venture capital from partners like Hummer Winblad, Amidzad Partners and Intel Capital, TechCrunch reports. The company's offerings extend to a range of hardware products such as InMage-4000 that offers data protection, backup and disaster recovery solutions to companies with petabyte-size requirements.
"This acquisition will accelerate our strategy to provide hybrid cloud business continuity solutions for any customer IT environment, be it Windows or Linux, physical or virtualized on Hyper-V, VMware or others," Microsoft Corporate Vice President Takeshi Numoto wrote in the company's blog post, Friday. "This will make Azure the ideal destination for disaster recovery for virtually every enterprise server in the world. As VMware customers explore their options to permanently migrate their applications to the cloud, this will also provide a great onramp."
Microsoft is eyeing InMage's flagship Scout product, which is available on both hardware and cloud platform. The Scout technology will be integrated into Microsoft's Azure Site Recovery service. Existing Scout members will be able to use the service through Azure and can enable data migration as well.
Microsoft has made some notable changes to its cloud based services, including the acquisition of storage device maker StorSimple in 2012 and launch of Azure StorSimple 8000, eWeek reports. The company rebranded its Hyper-V Recovery Managerr as Azure Site Recovery last month to operate as a cloud-based alternative to organizations with individual remote disaster recovery sites.
