A key driver in Cobalt Iron’s mission to transform data protection is our dedication to adding value for our customers. Through Compass software enhancements designed to reduce risk, increase efficiency, and lower costs, the Cobalt Iron team is proud to have delivered on that mission in the past 12 months. In 2021, Cobalt Iron product development has been laser-focused on releasing key software functionality to enhance the Compass product experience and position our customers for future success. Below is a review of the 2021 released Compass software functionality and the resulting industry recognition.
2021 Enhancements to Functionality
Compass data protection platform is the most complete and powerful enterprise-scale backup solution available today, and it only gets better with each release. Compass customers immediately get the most secure, easiest-to-use data protection platform on the market delivered into their environment without any patches or manual upgrades.
The Cobalt Iron product development and support teams are constantly looking for opportunities to enhance Compass capabilities that meet changes in market needs and anticipate future trends. This year, that included updates and releases to broaden Compass’ cloud workload support, increase the efficiency of Compass data migration, and make our customers’ jobs easier with more integrations and reporting features. Because of Compass automation and its delivery to customers in a Software-as-a-Service model, all released features are immediately available to customers without any installations, updates, or unique costs.
Increased Cloud Support to Enable Digital Transformation
Compass deepened its capabilities in cloud workload support in 2021, enhancing and simplifying VM snapshot support for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform. As our valued customers continue their digital transformation to the cloud, it was a clear area for Compass development. Customers with AWS and Google Cloud deployments can continue to take advantage of Compass Commander as a single-pane-of-glass interface for visibility into their entire backup landscape.
Making Backup Operations More Transparent and Easier to Manage
Every company has different needs, and Compass is built with the flexibility to match an organization’s unique processes in a secure, automated fashion. With the 2021 release of Compass SAML integration, customers have the convenience of managing user provisioning and authentication securely and easily from their preferred third-party identity providers. SAML integration allows administrators to bypass the time-consuming task of creating new users and assigning them to groups manually. This product enhancement is one of the developments in our ongoing evolution of Compass to reduce the pain and increase the ease of backup administration.
Also in the past year, Compass product releases improved the accessibility of Compass reports to meet customers’ business workflow requirements. This was an enhancement to the existing robust suite of reporting features.
Cobalt Iron was also proud to release enterprise object search functionality to Compass customers. With this enhancement to Compass search features, administrators can search the entire enterprise backup landscape at the object level to quickly identify and locate important files. While most products on the market are restricted to searches against a single backup server, Compass now allows users to garner insights from all backup data repositories in a single request. This streamlines operations for our customers and adds to Compass functions in comprehensive data governance.
Adding Value and Efficiency to Investment in Compass
One of the key focus areas for Cobalt Iron developers is making backup management and operations as simple as possible with Compass. There are plenty of other items of concern for IT leaders and administrators. Anything that can be simplified and automated gives valuable time back to the team for other tasks while increasing the security of the environment by eliminating points of user interaction with backup components.
2021 included releases to improve the Compass data migrator, an enhancement that allows customer data to be migrated faster and more efficiently, decreasing deployment time. The best part? Customers do not pay more or lift a finger to benefit from the added value of this enhancement.
Deep integration into enterprise applications increases efficiency for Compass customers including 2021 enhancements to ServiceNow integration. With this API integration, backup administrators have a significantly easier workflow to receive event notifications within the enterprise applications they work with every day. Again, because Compass is delivered to customers in a SaaS model, every enhancement released is immediately available with no actions needed and no additional costs.
Industry Recognition Validates Compass Technology Leadership
Based on the strength of Compass’ performance for automating, simplifying, and securing the entire data backup landscape, Cobalt Iron and Compass received industry recognition in 2021.
Cobalt Iron joined IBM’s Passport Advantage program, enabling easier Compass purchasing options for IBM partners and customers, and recognition as one of the most promising IBM solution providers of the year. Analyst group DCIG awarded Compass honors for exceptional protection of VMware and vSphere at enterprise scale and recognized Compass as a leader in Google Cloud platform backup. Cobalt Iron continues to develop differentiated solutions to securing data backup and was awarded multiple patents in 2021 related to the security approach and technologies within Compass. So robust are the security features of Compass, that Cobalt Iron was named in the Top 10 Cybersecurity Companies by CIO Bulletin, alongside organizations that specialize in IT security and risk mitigation solutions.
Sheltered Harbor Endorses Compass
A milestone in recognition of Compass security capabilities was the financial sector not-for-profit initiative Sheltered Harbor selection of Cobalt Iron as a technology Solution Provider Alliance Partner. Cobalt Iron is now part of a select group of solution providers that Sheltered Harbor engages with in the development of Sheltered Harbor-compliant turnkey solutions that would assist its participants in the implementation of the sector’s resiliency standard. We are proud of what this means for the future of Compass, and what this endorsement says about the robust capabilities in secure data protection Compass already delivers to customers every day.
By highlighting some of the recognition Compass and Cobalt Iron have received, we hope to demonstrate to our customers that you have made a recognized choice to protect your data with industry-leading technology.
2022 Look Ahead
2022 promises to be another valuable year for customers and Compass users as Cobalt Iron developers continue to focus on enhancements and new functionality that meets and anticipates market needs. Some of the most exciting items on the new year horizon include Compass continuing to stand out on security and compliance. The 2021 endorsement from Sheltered Harbor reflects this leadership in security capabilities.
As we transition into the new year, customers can be assured that their investment in Compass is an investment in continued added value. Cobalt Iron appreciates our customers and is committed to developing the data protection solution of the future with Compass.
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