Commvault Inc. wants to simplify backup operations for organizations with fewer than 2,500 employees.

The publicly traded backup and information management provider today introduced Metallic, a data protection service built specifically for midmarket customers. Commvault hopes to set the offering apart from the many rival products out there by making it easier to deploy. Metallic is delivered via the cloud on a subscription basis, comes with a 45-day free trial and takes 15 minutes to set up, according to the company.

The service checks a lot of boxes. Metallic comes in three separate editions that enable administrators to back up Office 365 deployments, employee computers and their company’s backend infrastructure, respectively. The version covering the latter use case can create copies of data in file servers, SQL databases and virtual machines running in the cloud as well as on-premises.

Companies may customize where Metallic stores the backup copies based on operational considerations. Commvault provides the choice of keeping data in the service itself, on an external cloud platform such as Amazon Web Services or on a firm’s own on-premises infrastructure. Savvy information may theoretically use a mix of all three if their backup plan so requires.

Per-gigabyte pricing for the three editions of Metallic starts at 20 cents per month and goes down with volume. Commvault said that the service can handle upwards of multiple petabytes of backup data on the high end of the spectrum.

The company evidently sees a big opportunity ahead: Commvault has formed a dedicated business division also called Metallic to promote the service and drive product development. The midsize businesses the offering targets constitute a large market that could provide a valuable new source of revenue for Commvault, which has historically focused mainly on larger enterprises.

The company is pursuing new growth opportunities in an effort to offset recent sales declines across its legacy product lines. Former Puppet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mirchandani (pictured) took the helm in February to lead the effort.  As part of the growth push, Commvault last month inked a $225 million deal to buy Hedvig Inc., a startup with a software platform that enables administrators to provide central management of the different kinds of storage infrastructure used within their organizations. 

Photo: Commvault