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Eze Castle Integration Introduces Iron Mountain-Powered Backup System
December 10, 2007
Technology provider Eze Castle Integration said today that it has partnered with records management specialist Iron Mountain on a new online backup and recovery service for hedge funds and investment firms.
The system, Eze Vault Powered by Iron Mountain, combines Boston-based Eze Castle’s IT management services with Iron Mountain’s storage infrastructure, providing continuous online backup of files and databases offsite and recovering them quickly in the event of a virus, data corruption or other failure.
“We are providing continuous online backup as an additional option besides tape,” said Bob Guilbert, managing director of marketing at Eze Castle Integration. “We are replicating the data to an Iron Mountain storage facility. Unlike tape, this can go online, select files” and bring them back to the user.
Dave Kubick, VP of worldwide alliances for Iron Mountain of Boston, noted that his firm’s primary role will be to provide back-office storage while Eze Castle manages the service and gives clients access. Unique to the Eze Vault service is its scalability, Kubick added, and the fact that data is “encrypted when it is backed up, it is stored encrypted, and is recovered encrypted.”
Eze Castle Integration, which has 450 hedge fund and investment firm clients, provides outsourced IT services, including startup and relocation, telephony, networking, data protection, disaster recovery, technology installation and support. “In light of these solutions, this is a natural progression of our offerings,” said Guilbert. Eight hedge funds are already using Eze Vault.
In the financial services industry, where firms typically need to keep electronic records for three to five years, clients will still need traditional tape backup, explained Guilbert, since that remains the most suitable method of long-term storage. However, day-to-day backup tapes can leave firms susceptible to data loss and slow recovery in the event of a virus or data corruption. Also, many firms do not take backups offsite regularly and fail to establish procedures to protect data integrity.
“This solution is meant to augment tape storage,” Guilbert said. “It facilitates much faster recovery. Online data can be brought back, but it is not a solution for long periods of archival.”
When a file is corrupted, Eze Vault automatically recovers the data that has changed since the last backup rather than the entire database. Eze Castle engineers are available to assist.
Client data is stored in Iron Mountain’s secure underground facilities and monitored around the clock. The company provides data protection and storage services to 10,000 customers worldwide.
“This partnership reinforces our commitment to providing clients with easy access to proven, industry-leading solutions, while alleviating day-to-day management and maintenance activities,” said Guilbert in a statement.
Eze Castle entered the disaster recovery business in February 2005 with the release of an Internet-based solution for hedge funds and traditional investment managers. In an interview earlier this year, Guilbert noted that in 2006 Eze Castle’s “disaster recovery business grew 82 percent just from hedge funds," adding that funds find it easier and more cost-effective to outsource the function.
