Microsoft is continuing along its journey to piece together a hybrid cloud stack at a steady pace, following up the recent introduction of two new Azure-enabled storage arrays with a tuck-in acquisition aimed at positioning the platform-as-a-service as a more viable data protection solution for the traditional enterprise.

The software stalwart has gobbled up InMage Systems, a low-profile business continuity specialist established in 2001 by Rajeev Alturi, the founder of video editing powerhouse CyberLink Corp. Over the last decade, InMage company built up a headcount of about 150 people and raised more than $35 million in funding for its flagship Scout offering, a real-time replication tool that continuously tracks changes to data stored in users’ on-premise environments. When found, modifications are saved to memory and then sent to a remote target for backup.

The service provider edition of the platform, aptly named Scout Cloud, adds a number of advanced management capabilities on top of the core functionality and has earned the endorsement of Hewlett-Packard Co. and SunGard Data Systems Inc., which have implemented it in their respective data protection services.

The two different versions of the software share the common advantage of working with practically any enterprise system, regardless of the operating system and hypervisor, if there is even one. And to make things even simpler, InMage provides pre-packaged recovery wizards for a range of popular corporate workloads spanning from Oracle to Microsoft’s own SharePoint. The apps serve to further reduce the amount of manual work, and by extension the risk of human error, involved in restoring information after an outage.

Becoming part of Microsoft’s family

The combination of practicality and ease of use offered by InMage made the deal a natural for the Redmond giant, which needs to deliver the field-hardened data services CIOs have come to expect from their storage solutions. Bringing Scout into the fold provides much-needed reinforcement for the off-premise element of Microsoft’s value proposition.

According to Takeshi Numoto, vice president of marketing for Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, the software will be baked into Azure Site Recovery. A revamped version of the service formerly known as Hyper-V Recovery Manager, the offering allows users to spread out their data across multiple geographical regions for a fraction of the cost of setting up and maintaining their own dedicated facilities.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but, taking into account the amount of funding InMage had raised and the strategic importance of Scout to Microsoft, it’s likely valued in the high tens of millions of dollars. Numoto wrote in a blog that the software will be sold through Azure Site Recovery in the future, but stressed that the new purchasing model should have no impact on how existing customers use their implementations.  He added that his company will “continue to work with InMage service provider partners”, however, it would probably be unwise to count on Redmond making too big of an effort to cultivate ties with its new competitors.

photo credit: visionshare via photopin cc