With this acquisition, cloud based recovery services based on Microsoft Azure Cloud will also be offered where an MSP or a value added reseller can choose to resell branded online backup service.  Vembu technologies will soon release communication to all its Channel Partners regarding what this acquisition means for them. For the near future, Vembu Technologies will operate as an independent company till the acquisition and migration is fully completed.

There was this heated bidding war which went on between Microsoft and Google with regards to the acquisition of Vembu Technologies as both of them wanted to establish a strong presence amongst the Channel Partner space with regards to offering a solid backup service to SMBs. These heated exchanges where then noticed by the FTC which then intervened and after sustained negotiations handed over 68% of ownership to Microsoft and the 32% of share to Google.

Hence going forward, all client installations of Vembu will be handled by Google and all Server installation of Vembu will be handled by Microsoft and Vembu is looking to release necessary documentation on whom to contact when an issue arises as soon as possible. Here’s what our VP – Storage Products, Sathish Subramanian has to say about this acquisition. “We have been constantly contacted by Microsoft and Google to complete this acquisition and there were also times where we were forced to avoid taking calls with regards to this acquisition. Only after the intervention of FTC did things start to settle down and we felt now is the right time to release this critical information. However, we believe that this breakthrough now opens new horizons for our Channel Partners and they can now enjoy the benefits of having the option of being branded by both Google and Microsoft for offering their backup service”

We don’t expect any price rise amidst of this acquisition and we don’t have any plans to increase prices in the near future too. The management team of Vembu will now focus on a different industry segment which will be revealed shortly. To know more information on this acquisition, please check the official press release here

The above post was written by Lenin Srinivasan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Pro Online Backup Service allows Value Added Resellers and Managed Service Providers to offer online backup service to their customers without worrying about storage or hardware infrastructure.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now

Why many SMBs are reluctant to Cloud?

“Cloud Computing” – a buzz word that’s on the peak of Hype Cycle for quite some time now is still a ‘jargon’ to many SMBs and Mid Market Companies. It was interesting to see the results of the ‘cloud hosting awareness survey’ conducted by RackSpace that more than two thirds of the SMBs in US are not familiar with the term “Cloud Hosting” – Wow!

Now, two questions immediately arise in our mind. Is that the Small Businesses failed to grasp the cloud computing technology or the Cloud hosting providers done a horrendous job in marketing to that segment? I can understand why cloud hosting providers are more catered towards the ‘enterprise segment’ expecting some big deals ($$$) instead of focusing on mom and pop services which are typical of SMBs.

Now that even if the cloud hosting providers turned their flash light on SMBs and started to focus on this segment, they are faced with two big questions (barriers) that needs a fix.

1) Security and privacy concerns
2) Benefit over existing hosting service

A recent Forrester survey reveals that 51% of SMB survey respondents cited security and privacy concerns as their top reason for not adopting cloud computing yet. Small Businesses need a TRUE value proposition on why they need to move their data out of their premises and the real business value they derive out of it. These are some prime reasons on why many SMBs are still reluctant to cloud.

Why SMBs need the cloud?

BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Time frame) is one(four) good reason on why Small Businesses need the cloud – Sounds like a typical sales pitch?

Budget – The cost of running and managing an in-house data center is increasing exponentially year by year and more than the hardware cost, it’s the support & management cost and business app cost etc… that are the real pain points. On top of it, increasing cost for the maintenance required for the datacenter, electrical power supplies, cooling, bandwidth etc… are some prime factors on why SMBs need the cloud.

Authority – When small businesses require a business app, it has to go through lots of stages especially when maintained in-house. Right from staging, development, testing, production and fail over environment, the in-house IT department will be working on lots of other items as well in order to bring up the business app. Now if there should be a technical problem with the storage devices or servers, SMBs typically don’t have the situation under control and have to rely on the hardware vendor’s technical support.

Need – SMBs usually do not have remote data centers for managing their offsite data backup requirements. Data Backup is more than a need – a mandate for running successful businesses. Businesses without proactive backup and recovery policies are likely to be OUT OF BUSINESS within 2 years of a major disaster. Replication to a cloud platform is an effective data backup and recovery strategy and helps Small Businesses to withstand a data disaster.

Timeframe – Small businesses don’t have to go through a typical two week purchase order process and additional two weeks of configuration, staging, testing etc… in order for a Business Application to be available for production use. With Cloud Computing, they can get up and running in few days and this quick process will have a profitable impact on the business.


Small Businesses have always more reasons to shift their data out of their premises and move it to the cloud. But they are reluctant and held up and what they need is the right message that “Your Data is Safe and Your Business is Protected” to get them up and running on the cloud.

The above post was written by Lenin Srinivasan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

Some time ago, we’d written about David Chappell’s talk on Windows Azure, and why it was different. I’d also mentioned that I’d share the slide deck once I got it from David. Here it is.

(the ppt is cued to slide 27 which is where the fun stuff begins – the comparisons with other platforms. As we said earlier, the ‘neutrality’ with which this was presented was refreshing)

Read on…

The Windows Azure Platform a Perspective Chappell

The above post was written by Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

We had a couple (two, to be honest) of requests for the lyrics of our Cloud Cloud Maybe video. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

8,670 people can’t be wrong. That’s how many views its got on YouTube alone.

The lyrics? Here goes…

CLOUD CLOUD MAYBE

Yo ISP! Let’s vaporize it
Cloud cloud maybe (x2)

All right stop. Virtualize and listen
This cloud is hot – infrastructure invention

This trend is grabbin’ hold of us tightly
We’re blogging and debating daily and nightly

Is it really hot? Yo, I don’t know
but scalin’ on demand, it does show

To the extreme – McKinsey caused a scandal
when they donned their IT guru mantle

HYPE! The Gartner peak looms
SMBs are fine. Enterprise? No room!

Baloney! IBM said quickly
The suits are off their rocker. I think they’re just being prickly. Obviously!

Use it or Hate it, it’s here to stay
You’d better learn the rules of how you wanna play

If there’s a load of them, the cloud will scale it
Check out EC2 while S3 stores it

CHORUS: Yeah! Cloud Cloud maybe.
Go for it, baby! Cloud cloud maybe.
Cloud cloud maybe.

Now that I got you thinkin’
I see you’re looking for ideas ripe for a pickin’

Ready to virtualize to the point of abstraction
So you can reap when the cloud gets inflexion

Be smart; drink the kool-aid from a thimble
Don’t get all crazy when you see a symbol

Or a ppt… with some souped up lingo
Convincing that the cloud isn’t the way-to-go

LAUNCHIN. 3.0
“Cloud compatability on”, so you can grow

Scale on the fly, wave your headaches bye
Should you believe it? “But you’ve got to give it a try”

SUN -CLOUD. An oxymoron if I saw one.
But this & Atmos add to the fun.

The box is dead YO
Let’s move now to – S.O.A.P. – Cloud Computing

You can also run a cloud in its minis
Private clouds are hotter than grilled paninis

My Cloud! Coz I want no one pryin’
Cluster ‘em together & be just fine

Just SOA, nothing new some say
“old wine in new bottles” summarizes their take

GTrends! Shoots up as the vendors yell
This stuff is hot, by the noise you can tell

GOOGLE! No idea what they’re up to
App-Engine…G-Drive…there’s more in their zoo

Vapor to Vapor, the cloudosphere’s packed
If you’re trying too long for the attention of a hack

Cloud enable your scene you know what I mean
That’ll sex you up, put you on the radar screens

So what if its working? Yo, lets cloud it
Cloud’s here to stay. Microsoft will Azure it

CHORUS:
Cloud cloud maybe its too hot too hot
Cloud cloud maybe its too hot too hot

Yo man. That’s a server there!

Send it to the museum!

The above post was written by Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

Last week, I attended a Microsoft Azure event in Bangalore.

When I received the invitation to the event, I was surprised to see that Microsoft had arranged for a non Microsoft person, David Chappell, to speak at the event. I’d have thought that they would have arranged for someone from the Azure product team.

Now, David’s a well known speaker, and he’s really good at keeping things simple. And, he certainly helped make the event interesting.

But there was a larger reason behind getting someone from outside of Microsoft…

Neutrality!

More often than not, vendors ‘pretend’ to be neutral and clothe product propaganda in apparent neutrality (B is a great product BUT, guess what, our A is much better because…)

Not this time!

David was refreshingly honest in his assessment & comparisons. He even went so far as to say that competing cloud solutions would fit the bill very well for some of the use case scenarios described by the audience. And he was effusive in his praise for Amazon pioneering the whole ‘cloud thing’. Of course, in the process, he also gave us the whole nine yards on Azure.

I had a chat with David & Rajinish Menon (part of the Azure/DPE team at Microsoft India) and complimented them on what I saw was a pretty brave move. They said it was an extremely conscious decision to be absolutely honest with potential customers – and to ‘present’ Azure (and its competition) in a fair and unbiased manner.

Full marks to Microsoft on this one. The attendees also seemed to like this ‘no BS’ honesty, and were much more receptive to Azure than they’d have been otherwise! From an attendee perspective, they felt were served ‘information’ and not vendor kool-aid.

David & Rajnish have promised me some slides from the presentation; I’ll post them when I get them. You’ll then see what I mean by the fair comparisons.

UPDATE: On a (kinda) related note, check out our next post.

The above post was written by Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.