Crossroads
Crossroads Systems Inc., provider of data protection solutions, announced Thursday that it has signed agreements with Iron Mountain Inc. to include up to $2.2 million non-recurring engineering (NRE) agreement and a $3 million investment (a purchase of 582,524 shares of Crossroads common stock) by Iron Mountain.
In addition, the two companies have agreed to explore the development of specific solutions using StrongBox technology from Crossroads. StrongBox is an enterprise-level archive solution to leverage Linear Tape File System (LTFS) technology, featuring the scalability and economy of tape with the speed and accessibility of disk. It serves as a file-based and fully portable storage solution for long-term data retention.
Crossroads, headquartered in Austin, Texas, offers organizations proactive data security, storage connectivity, high performance, and cost savings. StrongBox is a file-based and fully portable storage solution for long-term data retention. The enterprise-level solution uses LTFS technology, combining the scalability of tape with the speed and accessibility of disk. Crossroads believes StrongBox is a cost-effective answer to growing data storage requirements, seamlessly scaling, while future-proofing. StrongBox presents itself as a standard NAS target with the ability to mount CIFS/NFS shares. No agents, backup software or application modifications are required, and organizations gain a persistent view for all files on tapes stored in the library.
Iron Mountain provides information storage and management services that help organizations lower the costs, risks and inefficiencies of managing their physical and digital data. Its solutions enable customers to protect and better use their information so they can optimize their business and ensure proper recovery, compliance and discovery. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain manages billions of information assets, including business records, electronic files, medical data and more for organizations around the world.
"Iron Mountain sees significant potential in partnering with Crossroads," said Richard Reese, chairman and CEO of Iron Mountain. "We believe that the StrongBox archive will help bring down the costs of long-term data archiving for our customers, and that combining Strongbox's efficient use of tape technology with our industry leading offsite tape vaulting services will deliver tremendous value. Our investment in StrongBox and the related partnership reflects our commitment to bringing the most reliable and cost effective data storage solutions to our customers and fits our strategy to provide technology enabled products to market by partnering with the best technology providers."
"This agreement underscores the disruptive nature of StrongBox technology that allows organizations to archive their data at a fraction of the price they were previously paying," said Rob Sims, president and CEO of Crossroads Systems. "Working with industry leaders such as Iron Mountain, Crossroads continues to greatly expand the reach of StrongBox technology. Iron Mountain's investment in the NRE agreement illustrates the confidence in StrongBox's first-of-its-kind stance within the storage industry."
