Cloud storage and data protection are two of the hottest topics discussed in the SNW Spring Conference, which kicked off yesterday. And as two of the most prominent trends in the IT industry, quite a bit of updates crossed the wire lately.  The latest one is an announcement by Scality, the developer of the highly scalable application centric cloud storage system RING, who just partnered up with hybrid cloud storage and data protection company CTERA Networks.

“This integration gives new and existing Scality customers the opportunity to run managed data protection services with CTERA’s hybrid appliances, underpinned by Scality’s massively scalable, high performance and cost-effective RING storage platform,” said Jérôme Lecat, CEO of Scality.

The two companies are targeting Storage-as-a-Service providers, including e-mail and personal cloud storage service providers, with the promise of zero service interruptions and hybrid cloud storage/data protection. Scality, however, already landed quite a few SaaS providers as customers, and this partnership is the latest push aimed to accelerate its expansion. The previous one was announced earlier this week, when Scality welcomed Eric Craig to its New York offices as the new North American Sales Director. Craig brings with him over 20 years of experience in IT sales and marketing.

A bit earlier, the cloud storage company raised $7 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Idinvest Partners with participation from Crédit Agricole Private Equity and Galiléo Partners.

Scaling the cloud is becoming a focus of more and more solution providers such as Scality, as demand is accelerating in the enterprise space. Another example is Avere, who yesterday unveiled two new FXT Series scale-out NAS appliances: the FXT 2550 and 2570 models, featuring Intel Xeon quad-core processors, more storage and better connectivity.