OWC Acquires BRU Product Technologies and Customer Base From Tolis Group

Other World Computing, Inc. is in the final steps of completing the acquisition of the BRU (TOLIS Group, Inc.) product technologies and support of the ultra-reliable data backup, restore, and archival solutions for end-users and OEMs.

Based on 35 years of technology, BRU is a cross-platform backup and archival solution. The adoption of the this product line further establishes OWC as the provider of reliable backup and archival solutions for both companies existing customers and new. 

With local disk, tape storage, and enterprise-level cloud implications, BRU’s reliability, and enhanced recoverability mechanisms, bring a new product definition to OWC’s storage and backup offerings.

Because of BRU’s stream-based, check summing, anytime verify feature, the fully cross-platform verification comes standard.

Any archive created on a BRU platform will read/restore on any other platform. The in-stream check summing allows a BRU archive to be verified at any time without access to the original files, filesystem, or platform. The BRU archive format is device-agnostic, allowing archives to be written to tape, disk, and cloud destinations. The BRU based solutions can be used to clone drive content, create a deep archive for offsite retention or perform daily backups of your corporate data infrastructure to a secure cloud environment.

BRU provides security and reliability levels. Its server client-server architecture will be expanded to incorporate private and public cloud implementations as part of the OWC cloud strategy.  

“This acquisition acknowledges the importance of BRU and all that TOLIS Group provides,” said Larry O’Connor, OWC founder and CEO. “We are glad to ensure customers of this innovative platform’s continuing support and development as part of the OWC lineup. With the acquisition and hiring of TOLIS founder Tim Jones as OWC’s new chief solutions architect, focused on software, cloud, and business solutions, we look forward to a long and bright future for this proven data technology. OWC will ensure this trusted technology will not just live on but will flourish and have a whole new level of support and engagement within the OWC lineup.”

Rewriting BRU technology is complementary to OWC’s existing LTO solutions and included in future LTO products.

M&E professionals, corporations, government, and small businesses face the same challenge: how to manage an increasing amount of more complex data. Higher resolution, complex audio, and diverse formats are the project norm.

Organizational content is projected to grow 50-70% annually as more data is digitalized. Licensing and regulatory compliance requirements are becoming more stringent. The Mercury Pro LTO family, provides performance data integrity and utilizes Thunderbolt (Type-C), providing plug and play ease of use on Thunderbolt 3 and future Thunderbolt 4 equipped computers.

The genesis of BRU in 1985 as a commercially available tool was driven by the inability of popular tar-based operations to reliably backup and restore archives on Unix systems. The company’s design mandate was to return the most data possible during a restore, limited only by physical damage. In January of 2005, bruAPP was born. The bruAPP backup appliance solution is a backup and restore-focused appliance that delivers the a truly “server-less” backup services across client/server system topologies. It virtually eliminates the configuration, installation, and compatibility issues when designing and building a backup infrastructure. In January of 2010, BRU technologies entered further into the hardware market, providing one-stop shopping and support for tape and BRU software bundled offerings. In 2018, development of BRU Producer’s Edition entered the Windows market for Windows desktops and enhanced capabilities were added to their BRU Server and its bruAPP backup appliance for Windows users. Launched in March of 2020, the BRU Producer’s Edition replacement – ArGest Backup for Windows, macOS, and Linux completed this evolution. 

“While turning out the lights at TOLIS Group due to the pandemic was the most difficult thing I’ve done in my business life, the closing of that the door has opened an exciting new one,” said Jones. “The opportunity to bring the BRU family of backup, archival, and storage solutions under the OWC banner will ensure continued growth, advancement, and support for existing and new users for many years to come. By leveraging OWC’s breadth of products to enhance BRU capabilities, we will be able to bring many new storage, backup, and archival options to end-users as well as the worlds of business, research, education, and media and entertainment. The opportunity to join the executive team at OWC offers amazing new challenges and growth opportunities, and I am very excited to join the OWC family and product teams.“

TOLIS Group, Inc. storage management software and backup server appliances are used to address tasks such as backup, protection, and disaster recovery. Its products include tools for Mac, Windows, Unix, and Linux environments based on its BRU technology. It has also moved into the hardware side of data protection with its platform-independent – bruAPP – data backup and restore appliance, disk-based storage, and tape solutions in both standalone and library automation formats. The company’s customers come from industries including financial services, education, health care, manufacturing, and consumer goods.