Data Backup Digest

Barracuda Networks, Inc. has long been known as a leader in IT security, data storage and private networking. Founded in 2003 and based out of California, the enterprise has grown steadily since its inception. In fact, having recently gone public with the New York Stock Exchange, Barracuda is under even more pressure than ever before. Thankfully for the company, as well as its new investors, the team with Barracuda is working harder to develop new innovations and new products that support cloud computing and private networking.

Recent Products

Barracuda boasts a plethora of brand new products. One of the latest, the NG Firewall F380, is meant to fill in where the F300 and F400 models failed. Complete with eight Gigabit ports and 3.8 Gbps of firewall throughput, the F380 provides a lot of new muscle to an already strong line of firewall hardware.
November of 2014 also saw the launch of Barracuda's ArchiveOne 7.0, a highly specialized software suite aimed at providing archival services, eDiscovery and large-scale information management. With its web-based access, which is usable without any external clients or software, businesses are able to collect, search, process, archive and manage data easier than ever before.

New Functionality

In order to protect against ever-evolving IT threats, as well as to keep their software fresh and accesible, the team with Barracuda is constantly improving the functionality of their products. Barracuda Total Threat Protection, which was only recently launched, gives their customers the ability to uphold security across the board in either private or public cloud architectures. Barracuda Total Threat Protection is capable of safeguarding web-based applications, Internet browsers, email servers, mobile connectivity, network access and more.

Jon Oltsik, one of Enterprise Strategy Group's senior analysts, described the benefits of Barracuda Total Threat Protection in a recent interview. He was quoted as saying: "It is very common for IT departments to deploy a different product for every type of threat, and these individual products create security silos, blind spots, and an operations nightmare. Barracuda’s Total Threat Protection initiative may be attractive because it combines the value of best-of-breed products with common management to help ensure protection and alleviate the administrative burden."

Filling in the Gaps

When Symantec announced the discontinuation of their Backup Exec cloud service as well as their Backup Exec appliance in November 2013, Barracuda immediately stepped up to the plate with the Barracuda Backup line of solutions. In fact, some consider the Barracuda Backup service to be even more comprehensive than that of Symantec Backup Exec offerings.

Rod Matthews, general manager of storage with Barracuda, spoke candidly about Symantec's decision, how it has affected their customers and how Barracuda is hoping to fill the void. He was quoted in a recent interview as saying: "A lot of [Symantec’s] resellers that have bought into the model of having an integrated appliance and a cloud now don’t have that...We have a better product than they even have, and I believe ever would have, but we didn’t have the market presence in the channel, so now a lot of those channel partners are looking for something that is like Symantec."