ClearSky Data, provider of on-demand primary storage with built-in offsite backup and DR as a single service, today announced its partnership with Faction, a Denver-based company that architects, implements and supports cloud solutions for enterprises across multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. Together, ClearSky Data and Faction will deliver disaster recovery (DR) on demand with VMware, allowing customers to eliminate their secondary data centers and the expenses they incur. Unlike other DR solutions, the combination of ClearSky's hybrid cloud storage and Faction's VMware-based Multi-Cloud Platform as a Service creates on-demand DR that delivers guaranteed performance, operational consistency and native VMware toolsets.

In pursuit of lower and optimized IT costs, enterprises are moving away from traditional CapEx consumption models for data storage. Instead, they're seeking OpEx models that shrink their data center footprints, ensure flash performance, and include built-in backup and DR. ClearSky and Faction fast track this cloud migration with an offering that gets virtual machines (VMs) to the cloud without migration or the need to modify applications. Users pay for a single, durable copy of their data, which they can access from anywhere. There is no need for replication, secondary infrastructure or network lines.

"As a VMware partner, we've heard customers asking for a seamless on-demand DR solution with native vCenter integration, and that's exactly what we're delivering in partnership with ClearSky Data," said Luke Norris, CEO and founder of Faction. "The combined compute and storage on-demand allows customers to have access to reserved resources, which can be activated during a disaster, eliminating the costs and management of a secondary site. It's unique to the market, and it is something VMware customers have sought for a long time."

Enterprise organizations have struggled with the inability to access on-demand DR via the public cloud that delivers predictable performance, native VMware integrations and the cost savings of a pilot light approach. ClearSky Data and Faction eliminate those concerns, with DR that delivers a recovery point objective (RPO) of 0 and recovery time objective (RTO) of less than a minute. At the same time, users can cut their storage costs by more than 25 percent as they extend their enterprises to the cloud.

"Customers want to get out of their secondary data centers to capture the flexibility and economics of the cloud, but it's been almost impossible for them to get there with reliable performance and costs," said Laz Vekiarides, chief technology officer and co-founder of ClearSky Data. "This partnership paves the way forward and makes on-demand DR a reality for the enterprise."