Iron Mountain opens a cloud `shop’

As one of the well-known names in the world of information storage and management, Iron Mountain has built up a client list that includes many enterprise users, including a claimed 94 percent of the Fortune Top 1000 businesses. Most of those businesses are looking at the use of cloud services as the next extension of their IT operations. And Iron Mountain has latched onto the notion that its deep connection with the datacentre and IT resources of these businesses present it with a good opportunity.

So it has bitten the bullet and has launched an online community, the Iron Mountain Data Center Marketplace, for its datacentre customers where they can find and connect with cloud service providers.

The site gives customers a neutral platform to shop for a range of cloud service solution options, enabling faster implementation times without compromising security and compliance requirements. At the same time, the Marketplace provides a venue for cloud and solution providers located in Iron Mountain’s datacentre facilities to promote their offerings to organisations located within Iron Mountain’s datacentres.

“We want to create a convenient platform for Iron Mountain customers to easily find and quickly implement the cloud solutions they need from the service providers in our marketplace,” said Mark Kidd, senior vice president and general manager, data centers, Iron Mountain. “The ability to join the Marketplace is a great opportunity for them to make their services available to a large customer base. It’s a win-win for both our providers and customers.”

The move follows on from the launch, in April 2013, of the company’s entry into the multi-tenant datacentre market, making available wholesale datacentre and retail colocation options within the company’s western Pennsylvania Underground facility. In September, the company also broke ground on its first regional datacentre,  in Northborough, Massachusetts. This is scheduled to open this coming May.

One of the early service providers signed up with Iron Mountain is Black Lotus, which provides cloud-based, carrier-grade distributed denial of service (DDoS) mitigation services. The company will be using the platform to engage with organisations that are looking for high standards of security and compliance, and sees Iron Mountain’s commitment to carrier and service provider neutrality allowing it to offer solutions at significantly lower costs than on-premise alternatives.