E-mail Security Vendor Barracuda Networks Buys into Data Backup Business

Barracuda Networks is biting into the data backup business with the acquisition of BitLeap, a provider of local and offsite disaster recovery solutions.

As part of the acquisition, Barracuda Networks will now offer Barracuda Backup, a complete and affordable data backup and disaster recovery solution, to customers of all sizes and business types. The offering combines the Barracuda Backup Server - for rapid restoration on the local network – with the Barracuda Backup Service, a cloud-based storage service that backs up to two geographically dispersed data centers for redundancy.

“No other backup solution provides an affordable means of combining local, appliance-based backup with two offsite replicas,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks, in a statement.  "By maintaining three copies of each customer’s data, Barracuda Backup offers superior levels of disaster tolerance through hardware redundancy, geographically dispersed data centers, elimination of single points of failure and distance solutions."

Looking to cut storage and transfer requirements, Barracuda Backup analyzes each file at the bit level and only copying, transferring and archiving new bit sequences. It also offers multiple layers of encryption, including AES 256-bit. The two offsite data centers use highly redundant disk-based hardware in a fully encrypted format as well, company officials said.

Barracuda officials said they plan to continue to support current customers and will increase investment in the development of backup services and products. All of BitLeap’s employees have joined Barracuda Networks.

“BitLeap developed a compelling technology and services platform for delivering a unique backup solution to the market,” said Dean Drako, CEO of Barracuda Networks, in a statement. “We believe that the combination of the trusted Barracuda Networks brand, our customer-centric business approach, as well as our extensive worldwide channel reach will enable us to offer an affordable backup solution to our current customers and to mainstream businesses of all sizes.”