Carbonite buys open source backup provider Zmanda

Online backup provider Carbonite has announced that it is acquiring open source backup company Zmanda and will incorporate Zmanda's offerings into its Carbonite Business products. The acquisition will see the end of the Zmanda company name but, say Carbonite, the name may live on as a brand within its portfolio.

Founded in 2005, Zmanda dedicated itself to the support and ongoing development of the Amanda open source backup project, offering the Amanda Enterprise Edition and Zmanda Recovery Manager for centralised corporate backups, as well as a cloud backup service for small- and medium-sized companies that was based on these products. Versions of Amanda exist for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris; they provide backup for server and desktop filesystems. This works with server applications and database products such as Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint, Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL via a centralised backup server.

Carbonite, also founded in 2005, has specialised in providing online data backups for mobile devices and desktops in the home user and small and medium enterprise (SME) sectors. With the acquisition of Zmanda, the company has filled out its SME service portfolio by adding centralised backup solutions for server filesystems and applications, virtual machines, and databases in corporate networks and on public clouds. Zmanda's entire product range will remain available. Carbonite intends to complete the takeover before the end of 2012.

_{Note: The article has been corrected to reflect that Carbonite may retain the Zmanda name for branding.}

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