File migration start-up Moonwalk has reworked its HSM-style software to suit remote and disk-to-disk backup, because its customers have begun using the product that way. Moonwalk describes its system as a policy-driven HSM-style tool that can move or copy files between storage tiers, or for consolidation or migration projects, without needing to reset clients or applications with the new address of the files.

Stanford University kept telling us that they were using it replace their backup systems, said Moonwalk CEO Peter Harvey. They werent the only ones. People are using our copy function to make full file copies of files that have changed to secondary disk environments, he said. Other organizations following the Stanford pattern include an Australian government department, which is using Moonwalks self-titled software to copy data from a remote office to a data center, so sparing the overhead of tape backup at that remote office.

The updates that Moonwalk has made to its self-titled software revolve around changes to the policy engine of its software, Harvey said.

Australian-based Moonwalk was claiming sixteen customers in March, and now says it has thirty paying customers, across Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US. The company has signed up resellers in those countries, and in Japan and South America.