Metallic is a new SaaS backup and recovery solution based on Commvault's data protection software suite, proven in the marketplace for more than 20 years. It is designed specifically for the needs of medium-scale enterprises but is architected to grow with them based on data growth, user growth, or other requirements. Metallic initially offers either monthly or annual subscriptions through reseller partners; it will be available through cloud service providers and managed service providers over time. The initial workload use cases for Metallic include virtual machine (VM), SQL Server, file server, MS Office 365, and endpoint device recovery support; the company expects to add more use cases and supported workloads as the solution evolves.

Metallic is designed to offer flexibility as one of the service's hallmarks. Aspects of this include:

• On-demand infrastructure: Metallic manages the cloud-based infrastructure components and software for the backup environment, though the customer will still manage any of its own on- premise infrastructure. This environment will support on-premise, cloud, and hybrid workloads. IT organizations are relieved of the daily task of managing the infrastructure components and do not have to worry about upgrades, OS or firmware updates and the like, for the cloud infrastructure, so people can repurpose that time saved toward other activities.

• Metallic offers preconfigured plans designed to have users up and running in approximately 15 minutes, eliminating the need for a proof-of-concept test. These preconfigured systems have Commvault best practices built into the design, or organizations can configure their own.

• Partner-delivered services: Metallic plans to go to market with resellers that can offer a range of services on top of the basic solution's capabilities. These services will vary by provider and will give users a variety of choices when selecting a provider to match the services offered with the organization's needs.

• "Bring your own storage": Among the flexible options of Metallic, including VM and file or SQL database use cases, users can deploy their own storage, either on-premise or in the cloud, while utilizing the backup/recovery services of Metallic. The company refers to this option as "SaaS Plus."