One of the most widely adopted cloud applications in the IBM i community may be data vaulting and hosted disaster recovery (DR) services. By sending their data over the wire to companies like Vault400 and SafeData (which was recently acquired by Data Storage Corp.), IBM i shops are getting rid of their tape drives and tape-based backup processes, while keeping data safe from outages and disaster. The Seagate subsidiary i365 (formerly EVault) is making a business out of licensing its data vaulting technology to data center operators, who in turn offer vaulting services to customers--a franchise model that appears to be spreading rapidly. More IBM i shops are also expected to invest more in hosted DR and high availability (HA) services next year. Vision Solutions and Maxava both have data center partners who offer their DR and HA software to customers through a hosted model; SunGard Availability Services and IBM BCRS will also do well at the higher end of the market. The disk to disk (D2D) and virtual tape library (VTL) appliance market should also expand next year, as IBM i shops look for all-in-one devices that can satisfy backup, encryption, replication, and data de-duplication requirements. This market is expanding; ExaGrid added IBM i and DB2/400 support to its disk-to-disk (D2D) appliance just three months ago. Other D2D vendors supporting IBM i and DB2/400 data include Unitrends , and Crossroads Systems , EMC, LaserVault, Tributary Systems (which acquired D2D product from Gresham Storage Solutions), and Quantum.

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