Cobalt Iron among 10 most promising IBM Solution Providers

The annual list of companies is selected by a panel of experts and members of CIOReview Magazine's editorial board to recognise and promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

A technology partner for IBM, Cobalt Iron earned the distinction based on its Compass enterprise SaaS backup platform for monitoring, managing, provisioning, and securing the entire enterprise backup landscape.

According to CIOReview, "Cobalt Iron has built a patented cyber-resilience technology in a SaaS model to alleviate the complexities of managing large, multivendor setups, providing an effectual humanless backup experience. This SaaS-based data protection platform, called Compass, leverages strong IBM technologies. For example, IBM Spectrum Protect is embedded into the platform from a data backup and recovery perspective ... By combining IBM's technologies and the intellectual property built by Cobalt Iron, the company delivers a secure, modernised approach to data protection, providing a 'true' software as a service."

Through proprietary technology, the Compass data protection platform integrates with, automates, and optimises technologies, including IBM Spectrum Protect, IBM FlashSystem, IBM Red Hat Linux, IBM Cloud, and IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Compass enhances and extends IBM technologies by automating more than 80% of backup infrastructure operations, optimising the backup landscape through analytics, and securing backup data, making it a valuable addition to IBM's data protection offerings.

CIOReview also praised Compass for its simple and intuitive interface to display a consolidated view of data backups across an entire organisation without logging in to every backup product instance to extract data.

The machine learning-enabled platform also automates backup processes and infrastructure, and it uses open APIs to connect with ticket management systems to generate tickets automatically about any backups that need immediate attention.

To ensure the security of data backups, Cobalt Iron has developed an architecture and security feature set called Cyber Shield for 24/7 threat protection, detection, and analysis that improves ransomware responsiveness.

Compass is also being enhanced to use several patented techniques that are specific to analytics and ransomware. For example, analytics-based cloud brokering of data protection operations helps enterprises make secure, efficient, and cost-effective use of their cloud infrastructures.

Another patented technique — dynamic IT infrastructure optimisation in response to cyberthreats — offers unique ransomware analytics and automated optimisation that will enable Compass to reconfigure IT infrastructure automatically when it detects cyberthreats, such as a ransomware attack, and dynamically adjust access to backup infrastructure and data to reduce exposure.

Compass is part of IBM's product portfolio through the IBM Passport Advantage program. Through Passport Advantage, IBM sellers, partners, and distributors around the world can sell Compass under IBM part numbers to any organisations, particularly complex enterprises, that greatly benefit from the automated data protection and anti-ransomware solutions Compass delivers.

CIOReview's report concludes, "With such innovations, all eyes will be on Cobalt Iron for further advancements in humanless, secure data backup solutions. Cobalt Iron currently focuses on IP protection and continuous R&D to bring about additional cybersecurity-related innovations, promising a more secure future for an enterprise's data."