BridgeSTOR For DPM 2010 Encryption and De-Dupe

BridgeSTOR, LLC reported that customer demand for in-line data-at-rest encryption is emerging as the newest addition to Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 (DPM 2010).

Offering both appliance and card-and-software based solutions for AES-256 block-level data encryption with intuitive key management, deduplication, compression and thin provisioning, BridgeSTOR’s solutions enable data protection managers to meet their requirements for securing Microsoft Windows server application, workstation and laptop data.

The BridgeSTOR products for DPM are available as integrated, drop-in appliances based on an HP DL180 server and as a user-installed combination of a dedicated data reduction processor installed on a PCIe card and specialized software available for suitably equipped HP ProLiant DL180, DL185, Dell PowerEdge R510, R610, R710 and R810, IBM x-Series M2 and M3 and other servers.

At the heart of the products is the Exar, Inc. 8200 Series data reduction and security processor installed on a PCIe (x4) card. The Exar 8200 Series processor is used as a specialized component that enables data encryption, deduplication and compression to be performed in-line without compromising performance or burdening the main system processor.

Software supplied by BridgeSTOR adds the GUI, key management system, drivers, deduplication and compression processing logic, system interfaces, block manager and utilities required to implement data encryption, deduplication and compression in a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 environment.

Card and software products include a set of detailed installation, configuration and performance optimization instructions, telephone-based implementation assistance and a one-year warranty on the hardware and software. Appliances are also delivered with installation and deployment support.

"Microsoft’s DPM 2010 is growing in popularity worldwide as the preferred Windows Server 2008 data protection platform. Our customers have been buying BridgeSTOR deduplication and compression to reduce the amount of disk storage required. Lately, however, a number of existing customers have been reconfiguring their systems to encrypt DPM data, but more significantly a growing number of our customers are looking at DPM data encryption as their primary reason for buying BridgeSTOR products," said John Matze, BridgeSTOR founder and CEO. "Businesses, universities and government agencies recognize their need to implement strong DPM data security to meet governance, compliance and risk management mandates. They are turning to BridgeSTOR for the data-at-rest encryption and key management that is unavailable for DPM 2010 from Microsoft or any other 3rd party."

Deduplication removes duplicate blocks from file and application data. Compression works on the deduplicated data, as well as on blocks that do not deduplicate, shrinking the amount of capacity required to hold shared data by 35 percent to 60 percent. When enabled, all data blocks are encrypted using the AES-256 algorithm as they are written to disk. BridgeSTOR’s block-based architecture is suited for DPM data and works equally well when protecting Exchange, SQL, Hyper-V, SharePoint and other Microsoft server application data.

Pricing for BridgeSTOR’s DPM appliances have an entry MSRP under $20,000. Card and software solutions for installation in a customer’s existing server start at less than $1,000. Both are priced based on capacity.

These products are sold through the BridgeSTOR website as well as through selected partners.