Today IBM announced several enhancements to its SmartCloud computing services collection, focusing on disaster recovery and continuity features. The new services include:

- IBM SmartCloud Archive, specifically designed for eDiscovery and other regulatory requirements for records storage,
- IBM SmartCloud Virtualized Server Recovery, and
- IBM SmartCloud Managed Backup enhancements to integrate the above two services in the backup stream and in automated backups.
Virtualized Server Recovery is a new service that can make it easier to recover a VM or a server after a disruption. A customer can choose to restore a server or one of its own VMs to a VM in IBM’s cloud or to their own servers in their datacenter, for example. There are various service levels that will be able to do rapid failovers, mimicking clustering in the physical world with much faster restores and without the hassle of dealing with the customized hardware involved in clustering. The service will be available for Windows, Linux and AIX servers initially.
IBM has had a managed cloud backup service for several years now. But missing from this offering is the ability to restore a particular server at a point in time, or the ability to move from physical to virtual machines. “We are trying to be as holistic and full-function as possible in our offerings,” said Richard Cocchiara, IBM CTO of Business Continuity & Resilience Services.
Pricing is on a per-use case for each running VM and data stored in the cloud. Given the number of use cases, if you are a current IBM customer, you are probably better off to call your representative. At some point in the future, IBM might have specifics available online like other cloud computing companies. The services will go live later this summer, depending on the customer’s geographic location.
Jessica Carroll, the managing director of IT of the US Golf Association and a current SmartCloud managed backup customer, is very interested in the new services. “It appears to be a more agile disaster recovery solution than the traditional hot site configuration. More agile may translate to quicker and more reliable recovery, which is an attractive concept,” she says.