CA Technologies ARCserve coming to Windows Azure platform as SaaS offering

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Couple of interesting updates on the Windows Azure front that I came across yesterday on Redmondmag.com and Mary Jo Foley’s All About Microsoft sites. 

Redmondmag.com covers the announcement from CA Technologies that they’re bringing their ARCserve backup and recovery solutions exclusively to the Windows Azure cloud computing platform as a SaaS solution in the second half of this year. Sounds like there will be some nice integration as well with the story saying that setting up an ARCserve account will automatically establish a Windows Azure subscription. The solution will provide customers with the ability to specify critical files that they would like to store in Windows Azure in case of a complete disaster recovery scenario, such as some of the recent natural disasters in the news. 

In the article, Steve Fairbanks, CA’s VP of product management for data management is quoted giving a nice nod to the Windows Azure operations team saying: 

"We think that their SLAs, their security, everything about the Azure service really services our market well, so we're excited to partner with those guys. What's unique here is you're getting the combined local backup capabilities and the cloud storage capabilities all sold as a convenient service."

The solution will provide a compelling set of offerings for customers looking for off-site storage of their mission critical information and data.

The other story of interest is on Mary Jo Foley’s site covering the release of the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS and the upcoming version for Android. There’s also a post on the Windows Azure blog that goes into more details on the announcement. The toolkit adds to the already available version for Windows Phone 7 and provides resources and services designed to make it easier for iOS developers to use Windows Azure. 

Both stories demonstrate the increasing usage and options available to customers interested in taking advantage of the Windows Azure cloud computing platform either directly or via services offered by third parties. 

For more information on the cloud business offerings available from Microsoft, check out the Cloud Power site. If you have questions or comments, please leave them here and I’ll work to address them as quickly as possible. 

Thanks for your time - Larry