EMC Corp., of Hopkinton, is bringing corporate data backup online as it launches a major effort to deliver data-storage services via the Internet - a concept called "software as a service," or SaaS.
Today, EMC will release MozyEnterprise, a service that will let business customers automatically back up their servers and desktop and laptop computers. The data will be uploaded via the Internet, encrypted to prevent unauthorized access, and stored at EMC-operated data centers.
"Anyone with a broadband connection and an Internet browser can provide online backup for their PCs," said Roy Sanford, vice president of marketing for EMC's SaaS business.
EMC got into the online-data-backup business by purchasing privately held Berkeley Data Systems last year for an undisclosed sum. Berkeley Data, of American Fork, Utah, had about a half-million customers for its Mozy Internet-based data-backup service.
Mozy offered unlimited online backups for about $5 a month to home users - a service that EMC continues to provide. But Mozy also offered an enterprise-grade backup service that attracted big customers like Vanderbilt University and General Electric Co.
EMC senior vice president Tom Heiser said his company's acquisition of Berkeley will reassure corporate customers that their data are in good hands. "One of their large customers expressed relief that EMC bought Mozy," Heiser said. "They knew that EMC could be held to a higher standard."
MozyEnterprise is based on EMC Fortress, a platform for delivering a variety of data-storage services over the Internet. Traditionally, EMC has sold massive storage arrays and the software for managing them. But the company hopes to expand its market share by providing many of the same services over the Internet. Instead of buying the necessary hardware and software, a company can log onto EMC Fortress and rely on a remote data center to run its data-management software.
In recent years, EMC chief executive Joe Tucci has made the company less reliant on its hardware business, and developed an array of software products for helping companies manage data. Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc. in Wayland, said that offering online data backup is well-suited to this strategy.
"Part of information management is backup," said Kay. "So this is sort of a logical extension of their business."
Kay said the Fortress platform would let EMC deliver other storage software products as online services. For example, EMC makes software that helps companies determine the most efficient ways to store data and can even alert the user when certain files should be discarded. Kay said that once EMC has backed up a company's files, it could easily offer a service to manage the entire lifecycle of the data.
EMC's Heiser wouldn't say what other services might become available through Fortress, but he said online backup is just the beginning.
"Stay tuned," he said. "There will be other applications that we will be plugging into it."
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
