Barracuda Boosts Capacity Of Premises/Cloud Backup Appliance

Barracuda Networks has launched a new back-up appliance that stores data on premises and also copies data to an off-site back-up service. The Barracuda Backup Server 990 has 24Tbytes of storage. Agents included with the appliance back up Windows 2003/2008 servers and Windows 7 clients, and provide a full data-restoration capability. The company says the agents perform block-level dedupe data at the source before sending data to the appliance. The appliance connects to a cloud-based backup service to transfer the data off site for an additional level of protection.

The American Motorcyclist Association, a 230,000-member organization in Ohio, replaced an IBM Tivoli tape-based back-up product with the Backup Server 990. "The Tivoli product was too complex and was too difficult to train people to use, plus it required a hundred tapes," says Robert Kluczynski, director of IT at the association. The organization had trouble restoring data from the backups. Moving to the appliance allowed the organization to reduce its data management costs by 25 percent. The organization, which Kluczynski calls "the NASCAR of motorcycle racing," looked at Symantec's Backup Exec, but wanted a product with mirrored backup in the cloud. "We cannot afford to be down at all," he says.  The company also considered Iron Mountain's backup service, but Barracuda was cheaper, says Kluczynski.

Like the American Motorcyclist Association, 80 percent of Barracuda's users are replacing tape systems, says Guy Suter, product manager for Barracuda Backup Service. The company realized it needed a higher-end server because it had lost sales for not having one. He also says many customers were buying the company's previous top appliance, the 890. "We figured there was a place at the higher end," says Suter. In addition to releasing the 990, the company has increased the capacity of the 890 from 6Tbytes to 8Tbytes of storage "Barracuda has a solid back-up server appliance product that should appeal to mid-range customers who want a powerful solution that is easy to use," says David Hill, principal for Mesabi Group LLC. "Barracuda seems to have solid technology, such as their data deduplication technology. Everybody is getting into the cloud, which simplifies disaster recovery preparedness for IT organizations."

Barracuda has data centers worldwide, because users in some countries don't want their data to go outside their own country, Suter says. In Canada, for example, some organizations don't want their data to be stored in the U.S. because of the PATRIOT Act. The 990 starts at $44,999. Off-site storage costs $50 per month per 100GB of stored data.