Asigra Cloud Backup v10

Asigra Inc. announced Asigra Cloud Backup v10.

The latest edition extends the reach and performance of the Asigra platform across the broadest range of computing environments, from small businesses to the Global 100. Advancements now include comprehensive protection for laptops, desktops, servers, data centers and cloud computing environments with tiered recovery options to meet the most stringent Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs).

With Asigra Cloud Backup v10, Asigra extends its backup and recovery technology leadership across public, private and hybrid cloud environments. v10 expands the tiers of backup and recovery (Local-Only Backup and Backup Lifecycle Manager (BLM) enabled cloud storage) and allows the backup of laptops in the field and other environments, so that customers can backup and recover their data to and from physical, virtual or mix of physical and virtual servers.

The Asigra Cloud Backup platform is a transformational backup architecture that was designed to leverage the efficiencies of cloud computing. The platform allows flexible and affordable service delivery to any size organization from small businesses to the distributed enterprise and is aligned with the technology and performance demands of modern IT infrastructures. With Asigra Cloud Backup v10, users improve recovery times, reduce operational costs and are provided with data protection without limits to meet dynamic IT requirements.

New features include:

• DS-Mobile support to back-up laptops in the field
• Tiered recovery (local-only backup to machines on end customer’s premises, offsite backup to a service provider or private cloud), allowing users to better align the value of data to the cost of protecting it while achieving higher Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs)
• Asigra Cloud Backup v10 can be deployed as a virtual appliance within virtual infrastructures for maximum application mobility, scalability and uptime.
• Advanced FIPS 140-2 NIST certified security and encryption of data in-flight and at-rest
• New backup sets for comprehensive protection of enterprise applications, including MS Exchange, MS SharePoint, MS SQL, Windows Server Hyper-V, Oracle SBT, Sybase and Local-Only backup

Traditional approaches to SMB and enterprise backup have not kept up with exponential data growth, variances in information value and complexities within the IT environment. Organizations continue to waste brainpower and precious resources on backup and recovery operations when it should be a routine task in today’s cloud computing era. Asigra Cloud Backup is next generation backup and recovery software optimized for cloud computing and designed to offer backup and storage efficiencies unavailable with traditional backup architectures by allowing users to capture less, ingest less, and store less data thereby reducing the amount of backup software cycles and storage hardware required to deploy and maintain high levels of data protection.

Balancing Performance and Cost
with Tiered Recovery Options
Asigra Cloud Backup is built on the company’s hybrid cloud deployment model, allowing users the freedom to backup to a public cloud for offsite recovery, build a private cloud for onsite recovery or select a hybrid of the two models. With v10 users can create tiered backup policies that align the value of the data with the cost of protecting it. Establishing policies for local backup sets allows IT to segment the data and choose what gets backed up locally on their private cloud. The local backup sets option enables companies to replace their typical tape-based local backup solution – with all of its pain, cost and complexity – with fast and simple backup to a local disk-based private cloud.

"The local backup option is a powerful benefit for Managed Service Providers as they can now offer more pricing granularity for customers on three levels – local, new and aging data," said Lauren Whitehouse, senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. "With more pricing flexibility for local backup, service providers offering cloud backup can offer a faster, more reliable and affordable backup service package to attract more business customers and free them from the pain of tape backup."

Cloud Backup for Mobile Computing
Asigra has extended the functionality of its data protection software beyond the data center and office with the DS-Mobile Client as part of Asigra Cloud Backup v10, providing assured data protection for mobile data that is often elevated to mission-critical status. Designed to meet the bandwidth and technical requirements of laptop computers, the DS-Mobile client uses a simple GUI for novice users and allows them to quickly and easily backup and restore their own data anytime, anywhere, reducing support costs for mobile users and improving laptop Recovery Time Objectives.

Advanced Data Security
All data protected by the Asigra platform is encrypted in-flight and at-rest and certified to FIPS 140-2 NIST standards, the highest commercial encryption standard available. Companies with extra security concerns for medical, financial, government and other highly confidential data can add another layer of protection with Asigra’s password rotation feature that provides the option of automatically generating and changing passwords at random for specific user accounts to prevent unauthorized access. The combination of FIPS 140-2 certified encryption, random password generation, data destruction based on U.S. Department of Defense 5220.22-M specifications and key escrow management make the complete Asigra Cloud Backup v10 solution the most secure data protection platform available.

Consolidated Protection
for Physical and Virtualized Infrastructures
According to Forrester Research at least two-thirds of companies in North America and Europe have already implemented server virtualization. With the major server virtualization vendors embracing the cloud as the strategic deliverable of a virtualized infrastructure, Asigra has enhanced the virtualization support in v10. Most significantly, Asigra Cloud Backup v10 can be deployed as a virtual appliance within virtual infrastructures for maximum application mobility, scalability and uptime. The company has offered support for virtual machine backups at the host level for several years and with Asigra Cloud Backup v10 now supports Hyper-V, VMware and XenServer using the latest native APIs, enabling improved performance and usability to backup data to virtual or physical servers. Asigra’s agentless design works with any virtual machine infrastructure and is more suitable for a virtual backup appliance than agent-based solutions.

"The complexity and impact to production servers imposed by tape-based backup required a fundamental change in the way we implemented backup for our 24-7 global enterprise," said Barry Jondahl, director of systems infrastructure and operations at Master Lock, the world’s largest manufacturer and marketer of padlocks and recent Asigra Cloud Backup convert. "Terian Solution’s cloud backup services Powered by Asigra represents a complete re-thinking of how a backup operation should work for a 21st century data center and the result is a significant advancement in backup technology that has improved the efficiency of our IT department and the quality of our backup operations."

"As a growing business we demand IT services with pricing flexibility that can scale as we expand operations," said Kevin Rorabaugh, IT director at Rogers Towers, a general practice law firm. "Without a large IT staff we also require solutions and services that simplify IT processes such as backup and recovery. With Yotta280’s backup services Powered by Asigra we have more time to do what we do best, freeing IT resources to tackle projects that help grow the business."

"Asigra has pushed its leadership another step forward by extending the advantages of what we consider the most comprehensive cloud backup platform," said Jeff Cato, vice president of marketing for CoreVault, an Asigra 3D Hybrid Partner. "Asigra Cloud Backup v10 makes a great product even better by leveraging the power of the agentless Hybrid Cloud Backup model and making it more accessible for SMB customers, mobile workers and enterprises with virtualized infrastructures."

"The NetApp and Asigra relationship provides service providers with an effective and cost-efficient solution that enables them to backup their valuable data using a single, unified storage platform," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions and Alliances for NetApp. "Furthermore our tight integration with the leading virtualization engines delivers added flexibility to service providers no matter what virtualization platform they leverage. NetApp’s support of Asigra Cloud Backup v10 is yet another proof point of the strong relationship between both companies and the continued commitment to deliver innovative solutions for the cloud."

"The availability of Asigra Cloud Backup v10 has reset the playing field for Asigra with end-to-end data protection from the laptop to the data center to the public cloud," said Eran Farajun, executive vice president for Asigra. "With advanced features that differentiate Asigra both technologically and economically from comparable solutions, the platform can adapt to the changing nature of today’s IT environments, providing unmatched backup efficiency and security as well as the agility to respond to dynamic business challenges."

Availability and Pricing
Asigra Cloud Backup v10 is available immediately through the Asigra partner network. Organizations can opt to deploy the software directly onsite or select an Asigra service provider for offsite backup or both. Pricing starts at $50 per month through cloud backup service providers Powered by Asigra.