IT Analyst Insights

John Webster, Illuminata: Microsoft Enters the Cloud Storage With Iron Mountain

The partnership between Iron Mountain and Microsoft holds great potential for DPM customers. We believe that Iron Mountain understands email and document chain-of-custody issues better than any other cloud storage service provider.

Michael Orasin and Angele Boyd, IDC: Iron Mountain A Remarkable Company

Iron Mountain is remarkable for its progress, transitioning the company from a focus on physical document storage to a focus on not only storing but managing and integrating digital and physical storage with value-added services around information protection and life-cycle management. Iron Mountain reads the cards early, anticipating a number of industry trends impacting its paper document storage business, and is successfully executing a robust strategy to build out core offerings that address expanding information protection and document storage management.

Laura DuBois, IDC – Iron Mountain Underground Tour: I’ve Been to the Cave and I Liked It

The future looks bright for the Iron Mountain Underground. The company has used only 145 acres of a total of 1,000 acres in the mine. This leaves ample room for future expansion. As Iron Mountain Digital continues to expand, the company is innovating in ways to further capitalize on the geothermal properties in the mine to reduce power and cooling costs and space requirements in its underground datacenters, giving them an edge in offering or enabling cloud-based services.

Laura DuBois: IDC - Strategic Hotels Implements Iron Mountain Connected and Live Vault for Cost Reduction and Data Protection
August 2009

This IDC Buyer Case Study looks at the use of cloud-based backup solutions by Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc., a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and manages high-end hotels and resorts. The company's main goal in searching for an alternative to its existing cloud-based services solution and supplier was to achieve lower costs and protect the firm from potential loss of corporate data for its mobile workforce. The market for cloud-based IT infrastructure services delivered in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model continues to grow. In addition:

IDC research indicates this model of IT delivery is disrupting traditional licensed software markets and changing how functions such as backup and recovery are procured.
IDC research suggests end users are bullish on cloud-based IT infrastructure services such as backup and recovery due to the cost, budget, and out-staffing advantages over traditional on-premise approaches.

Katey Wood and Nick Patience: the451 Group - Stratify latest contender in early case assessment - on-premises and in the cloud.
October 2, 2009

Stratify's eVantage is available on-premises as an appliance, but the addition of the SaaS version is the main attraction, since it can promote data to its existing Stratify Legal Discovery hosted review tool entirely within the cloud.

Simon Robinson: the451 Group - Iron Mountain early entrant into 'Cloud'
September 29, 2009

On the services side, Iron Mountain has been an early entrant into the 'cloud NAS' arena with its Virtual File Store service.

Lauren Whitehouse: Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) - Iron Mountain's Cloud-Based Data Protection for Servers
August 2009

Lower disk costs and bandwidth-optimized data transfer are fueling disk-to-cloud (D2C) and disk-to-disk-to-cloud (D2D2C) strategies. Iron Mountain's LiveVault enables on- and off-premises data protection, providing small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and the remote and branch offices (ROBOs) of any size organization with an alternative to tape-centric backup and recovery.

Brian Babineau: Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) - Iron Mountain Reduces Medical Image Storage Costs
June 2009

The cost savings gained by moving to a cloud-based medical image archive are tangible... Providers should conduct their own TCO studies and compare onsite storage to an alternative like Iron Mountain's service...If the provider believes that cloud-based storage service will save them money, Iron Mountain's Digital Record Center for Medical Images-bolstered by integration with PACS applications, highly available and extremely secure data centers, and a legacy in storing other health care information-is a formidable option.

Brian Babineau: ESG-Iron Mountain-Stratify 9.0 Delivers Multiple Benefits
February 19, 2009

When ESG asked North American corporate counsels about the most expensive portion of the electronic discovery process, the Processing, Review, and Analysis phases received the highest response. Interpreting both research statistics as a whole implies that customers who want to cut electronic discovery costs should utilize solutions that improve information processing and automate data analysis and review. Iron Mountain-Stratfy's service does just that—allowing companies to control the costs, along with the associated risks, of managing large volumes of ESI through the electronic discovery process. More specifically, the new additions to the 9.0 release of the service make it much easier for customers to manage all their matters centrally, utilize external resources and significantly expedite multi-level review processes.

IDC Whitepaper: Cloud Storage: The Efficient Way to Augment Storage Infrastructure

"In response to the emerging challenges weighing on storage managers, Iron Mountain has architected an infrastructure that allows storage capacity to be delivered seamlessly to organizations seeking some relief."

ESG White Paper: Iron Mountain Delivers File Archiving Service by Brian Babineau with Lauren Whitehouse
February 2009

"...companies are realizing that the archive storage environment can be just as complex to manage as the primary one due to the amount of data being saved. Iron Mountain addresses this challenge with its VFS service. Combining Iron Mountain"s service delivery capabilities - inclusive of its extremely secure data centers - with its unique VFS Appliance, the VFS service delivers all of the benefits of file archiving without the internal IT operational hassle."

IDG Research: The Hidden Cost of Storing Inactive Data - and What You
Can Do About It

"If you could take away 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent or more of the data you need to store, your existing storage infrastructure would obviously go a lot further. That is the value proposition behind the Iron Mountain Digital Virtual File Store™ (VFS) service..."

Taneja Group: Storage in the Cloud - A look at why the cloud will change how you work with your data

"One of the more interesting capabilities is a cloud version of Iron Mountain's long established experience handling physical data transfer in the form of tape. For the cloud, this new service is called a 'data shuttle.'"

Taneja Group: Iron Mountain Throws Down the Cloud-Based Storage Solutions Gauntlet

Iron Mountain's announcement of their strategy and their first product in this space changes that. VFS boasts all the financial and management advantages that other cloud-based storage options offer, but differentiates itself from them by providing a true solutions orientation, with key functionality critical for managing off-site data effectively over long periods of time. Their pedigree and domain expertise in information protection and storage add to the credibility of this "storage as a service" offering, setting a high bar for other cloud providers looking to compete at the business solution instead of the storage infrastructure level. This was an excellent move by Iron Mountain, and Taneja Group applauds their broad strategy in this space which offers comprehensive options through proprietary and non-proprietary cloudbased archive services.

Anne MacFarland, Clipper Group:
"Iron Mountain has decades of experience in storage as a service. Now, complimenting its email archives and other specialty repositories, Iron Mountain offers a Virtual File Store to handle the miscellanies of unstructured file shares that elude easy management. It is the completer - like the serving spoons in a set of silverware - that most businesses need to support their 21st century operation."

One of the most powerful business values of Iron Mountain is what it allows their clients IT shops not to do. Iron Mountain's Virtual File Store offloads the library-style information maintenance tasks that many organizations have neither the expertise nor the staff to perform on an ongoing basis. Instead, local IT can focus on what will provide real business value.

David Hill, Mesabi Group:

"Overall, we believe that the combined Microsoft DPM 2007 and Iron Mountain CloudRecovery solution offers a good value and is likely a sign of things to come "

Lauren Whitehouse, ESG:

"Coupling Microsoft's System Center Data Protection Manager with Iron Mountain Digital's CloudRecovery service provides organizations with an optimal solution to help improve overall data protection effectiveness and offers a leading solution from two vendors who are trusted experts in their fields."

Stephanie Balaouras, Forrester: "Iron Mountain is one of the few vendors that has built out a suite of SaaS offerings."

"Iron Mountain offers two online backup and restore services: LiveVault Server Backup and Recovery Service for servers and Connected Backup for PCs and Windows file servers. The two services are part of Iron Mountain's Digital portfolio. Its other services include its Total Email Management Suite, Digital Record Center for Compliant Messaging and Discovery Services featuring the Stratify Legal Discovery review and analysis eDiscovery application. Iron Mountain serves both North America and Europe and it is one of the few vendors that has built out a suite of SaaS offerings."

Henry Baltazar and Simon Robinson, the451 Group: "Microsoft is now teaming up with Iron Mountain to move into the 'cloud' storage space. Microsoft's name recognition and large channel are huge advantages in the SME space. Its partnership with Iron Mountain gives DPM 2007 a trusted disaster recovery repository for SMEs."

"Microsoft is also now teaming up with Iron Mountain to move into the 'cloud' storage space. The new offering, known as DPM Cloud Backup - powered by Iron Mountain - is designed to offer SME customers a remote disaster recovery strategy... With the recent improvements to DPM, Microsoft has shown that it desires to become a credible SME backup vendor. DPM 2007's enhanced application support, coupled with the upcoming addition of its client backup and Cloud Backup partnership with Iron Mountain are all key features that will appeal to SME customers. Microsoft's marketing muscle and large reseller channel will help it gain market share in the CDP space, which is still highly fragmented. With its aggressive pricing and its ability to more or less give away licenses, Microsoft's DPM 2007 could dent into the sales of competitors. The Windows-centric backup coverage of DPM 2007 will limit the appeal to Microsoft customers, while overall awareness of its capabilities in this area, relative to its large competitors, requires further investment... Microsoft's name recognition and large channel are huge advantages in the SME space. Its partnership with Iron Mountain gives DPM 2007 a trusted disaster recovery repository for SMEs."

Kathleen Reidy, the451: As part of Iron Mountain, Stratify maintains focus on e-discovery market

Growth in the eDiscovery niche appears far from slowing down, and Stratify continues to benefit from the early jump it had on this market. It is able to command a bit more market attention now as part of its much-larger parent, and this is evidenced by its recently inked partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers. This partnership could help Stratify better penetrate the general counsel's office at large organizations and help it expand its presence outside the US. More ongoing business with corporate legal departments would benefit Stratify, particularly if more of the early stages of an e-discovery process (e.g., collection, culling, first-pass review) move in house, as appears to be the trend. More ties to Iron Mountain's record management capabilities, and those of other vendors, could also help Stratify pitch itself for more proactive information management.

David Hill, Mesabi: Iron Mountain is Acting a Bit SaaS-y -Storage-wise That Is

"Iron Mountain is in an enviable position...The company does not suffer from the quarterly "hockey stick" affect that has plagued many IT high technology companies for decades with high orders and shipments at the end of the quarter as compared to relatively quieter prior periods. ... Iron Mountain is in the very desirable position of being an annuity business where revenues come in a consistent dependable stream...A company has to understand the processes that are necessary to be a trusted supplier. Iron Mountain has shown that it knows how to play in that space and other players, no matter how large or well-known, may find those skills harder to obtain than they think."

Read more:
Weekly Review: October 1, 2008

David Hill, Mesabi Group: Iron Mountain and HP Announce the Digital Record Center® for Medical Images

"...Overall, the solution leverages Iron Mountain's expertise as a managed service provider and HP's software savvy and storage hardware strengths through the HP MAS grid architecture. ...As a targeted solution, the partners seem to have a strong horse to ride that combines elements of SaaS and managed services among other elements. That general approach is likely to become more popular as businesses and the broader market come to recognize the value of managed storage services. And, as the costs to manage storage continue to rise, the managed storage solution can help these businesses to lower their TCO - while addressing their DR and compliance risks..."

Vivian Tero, IDC: PwC and Stratify Partner To Offer Forensic Investigation and Advance eDiscovery Services

"...Although the announced joint business relationship primarily calls out the complementary services across PwC's Forensics Technology Services unit and Stratify, it also opens up opportunities for the broader Iron Mountain and PwC portfolio...Iron Mountain and Stratify could fulfill the information management (including records management and archiving) and data collection needs of corporate litigants. PwC could provide the front-end forensic consulting and project management. PwC's Discovery Readiness and Discovery Response Consulting practices would precede Stratify's Legal Discovery services. There are also overlaps in both organizations' addressable markets. The large geographically distributed enterprises that are involved in multiple legal matters and investigations involving multi-language processing.

This relationship enables the organizations to provide services to mutual customers. Although the majority of media attention focuses on eDiscovery from the plaintiff bar, there is a significant opportunity for end-to-end forensic analysis and review solutions arising from second request, white-collar criminal investigations, regulatory inquiries, and fraud investigations. Corporate investigations and regulatory inquiries oftentimes precede a civil litigation. There are benefits for service and application providers such as PwC and Stratify to get their foot in the door as early as possible, and eventually extend these relationships into the later stages of the legal discovery value chain..."

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