Cobalt Iron patents analytics-based cloud brokering of data protection operations

LAWRENCE, Kan.—Cobalt Iron Inc., a leading provider of SaaS-based enterprise data protection, announced that it has received a patent on its technology for analytics-based cloud brokering of data protection operations.

U.S. Patent 11206306, issued on Dec. 21, 2021, describes new techniques that will be implemented in Cobalt Iron Compass, an enterprise SaaS backup platform. These techniques enable Compass to optimize cloud and on-premises computing resources automatically, making IT operations more secure, more cost-effective, and better-performing.

Security administrators, backup administrators, and other IT leaders responsible for maintaining the service levels and cost-effectiveness of IT operations are increasingly turning to the cloud for various aspects of enterprise data protection. However, cloud resources are rarely used efficiently, which leads to high cloud expenses, inefficient data protection operations, and poor service levels for backups and restores.

In addition, cloud resource utilization is often statically configured and unresponsive to changing conditions and events, and some conditions (e.g., changes in backup operational behavior; changes in the costs, availability, or performance of cloud resource services; or cyber-events associated with a cloud resource) might indicate the need to use other on-premises or cloud computing resources to process various data protection effectively. As a result of these deficiencies, enterprises need a more dynamic way to reconfigure cloud and on-premises computing resource usage that is responsive to operational and security conditions.

Cobalt Iron's new patented techniques use unique operational and infrastructure analytics to respond to changing conditions and to determine optimal usage of cloud and on-premises resources, thereby solving the problem. They can dynamically adjust the use of these resources by IT operations (e.g., data backups or disaster recovery operations) based on operational behaviors and conditions (e.g., poor operational performance or cyber-events).

The techniques disclosed in this patent are:

• Monitor for changes in various operational and security conditions associated with a cloud computing operation.
• Analyze the operational and security conditions as well as various computing resources to determine the optimal configuration of on-premises and cloud computing resources to perform the cloud computing operation.
• Dynamically reconfigure the cloud computing operation to use the optimal combination of on-premises and cloud computing resources.
• Remediate a condition associated with a cloud resource by initiating a data protection operation for data associated with that resource.

For example, if there is a cyber event in process against certain cloud computing resources, or if there is a change in the cost or availability of a cloud resource, then Cobalt Iron's patented techniques can dynamically reconfigure cloud computing operations to use a combination of on-premises and/or other cloud resources.

"Companies need to leverage the cloud responsibly. That is, they should use cloud services in a manner that is secure, cost-effective, and operationally beneficial. However, few tools exist to help companies optimize their cloud resource usage," said Greg Tevis, vice president of strategy at Cobalt Iron. "Cobalt Iron continues to innovate in the area of dynamic, analytics-based infrastructure optimization, including the cloud. This patent discloses techniques that broker cloud and on-premises computing resources so that enterprises end up with the best combination of security, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency for their cloud-based data protection operations."