Barracuda Load Balancer Now Includes Layer 7 Content Routing and Global Server Load Balancing

Barracuda Networks Inc. today announced new features for the Barracuda Load Balancer, including Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) and Layer 7 content routing. Available on Barracuda Load Balancer models 440 and 640, GSLB utilizes a built-in geographical IP database that ensures traffic redirection to the next available data center in the event of outage or other performance hindering event at the primary data center.

Layer 7 content routing enables administrators to direct Web traffic to different server groups based on the content of the incoming request. Content rules can be based on any part of the incoming traffic such HTTP headers, URLs and parameters. The application modules can be deployed on multiple servers and using content rules the Barracuda Load Balancer will retrieve the correct content based on the URL path, sub domain or application parameters. Layer 7 content routing is available in Barracuda Load Balancer models 340 and above.

“Unlike competing solutions, new content routing capabilities are powered by a comprehensive rules engine enabling administrators to deploy large applications across multiple servers,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks. “The Barracuda Load Balancer continues to offer exceptional ease-of-use for an enterprise-class application delivery solution at an affordable price.”

Barracuda Load Balancer firmware 3.1 adds support for 802.1Q-based virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging for advanced deployments. Utilizing this capability, the Barracuda Load Balancer can distribute traffic between servers that are deployed in different VLAN subgroups, enabling administrators to segment their backend server networks by application or user group. The Barracuda Load Balancer also introduces support for one-armed proxy deployments, allowing administrators to determine exactly what network traffic to route through the Barracuda Load Balancer.

In addition, traffic acceleration technologies such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) multiplexing have been incorporated to improve application response times. TCP multiplexing allows the Barracuda

Load Balancer to reuse existing network connections and removes the overhead associated with creating or terminating connections. This connection pooling enables administrators to achieve greater efficiency among servers and faster performing applications.

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

Barracuda Networks Introduces the Barracuda NG Firewall

Barracuda Networks Inc. today launched the Barracuda NG Firewall, a line of virtual and hardware appliances designed to protect enterprise network infrastructure, improve site-to-site connectivity and simplify administration of network operations. This product launch is the first since Barracuda Networks’ successful acquisition of phion AG, a leading firewall provider based in Austria in September 2009.

“The Barracuda NG Firewall platform was built from the ground up as a project to manage more than 650 firewalls for a large Austrian banking data center,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks. “With early development roots not only in centralized configuration, policy and reporting, but also in site-to-site WAN traffic management capabilities, the Barracuda NG Firewall is designed to optimize both the availability and performance of the WAN, with lower administrative overhead than incumbent solutions.”

The Barracuda NG Firewall intelligently combines Web and email filtering, intrusion prevention, Layer 7 application profiling, and network access control into a platform that can be centrally managed, across all enterprise network locations, including remote, home and branch offices, as well as regional headquarters and datacenters.

Centralized security management and content policy provides a number of benefits including:

* Consistent security posture and policy enforcement across the enterprise
* Real-time accounting and reporting across multiple gateways
* Comprehensive history and rollback of configuration and policy changes across the network

IDC research has shown that a majority of enterprises feel it is important to consolidate existing point products such as firewall, intrusion prevention and anti-malware into a single solution.*

“Barracuda Networks comprehensive product portfolio satisfies the Web and messaging security needs of numerous enterprise and SMB customers, worldwide,” said Charles Kolodgy, IDC research director, Security Products. “To improve management, reduce costs, and consolidate security, customers have been turning to comprehensive products that integrate numerous security features into an integrated platform. Barracuda Networks is meeting this demand with the Barracuda NG Firewall, which implements phion's proven and advanced technology. This network security product will open up new opportunities for their worldwide channel and help Barracuda Networks to penetrate and win more enterprise business.”

Intelligent Traffic Management
With the Barracuda NG Firewall, administrators can control application-level routing and prioritization of traffic across multiple links, tunnels and traffic conditions. To back up WAN connections, Barracuda NG Firewall appliances support a variety of links via most including T1/T3, DSL, ISDN, and 3G wireless mobile data standards. In the event of a WAN link loss VPN traffic is automatically reprioritized over the remaining WAN links. Barracuda NG Firewall appliances support the traditional IPSec protocol for cross vendor compatibility.

Flexible Remote Access Options
Barracuda NG Firewall appliances support multiple remote access options, including a light VPN client, a fully managed VPN client and a fully integrated SSL VPN. Network access controls enforce client security policies, including operating system patch level, desktop malware protection and personal firewall configuration.

Heritage Customers Place Confidence in Barracuda Networks
Although primarily known in EMEA, phion has a customer base of more than 1,000 customers and over 100,000 licensed VPN users at locations worldwide. One such customer, Austria-based RHI AG, which specializes in the field of refractory products and services for customers in the steel, cement, lime, glass, nonferrous metals, environment, energy and chemicals industries, is a large enterprise customer with more than 130 phion netfence appliances deployed across 84 locations worldwide. The primary product selection criteria for the company was driven by both technical and budgetary factors, including a means to decrease IT operating costs as well as to obtain secure, centralized management across the entire network.

“Within the first two months of deployment we had already realized dramatic cost savings per location as well as increased network traffic bandwidth,” said Gottfried Hofreither, CIO of RHI. “In addition we have secured a solution that allows for traffic prioritization and routing in case of a connectivity loss.”

With the acquisition of phion by Barracuda Networks, Hofreither is confident that the high levels of service and support he has experienced with the phion team will be further enhanced by Barracuda Networks’ wide international presence and strong track record for technical excellence. RHI’s operations in the Americas include 25 locations across South America, Mexico, the United States and Canada, supported by 40 appliances.

“Barracuda Networks is a highly reputable company throughout the world, known for its security expertise,” said Hofreither. “We are convinced that with Barracuda Networks as the new company behind our firewall infrastructure, we will be well-served and supported for many years to come.”

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

2010 SC Awards Program Shortlists Three Barracuda Networks Products

Barracuda Networks Inc. today announced that three of its products have been named finalists in the 2010 SC Awards program: the Barracuda SSL VPN in the Best IPsec/SSL VPN category; the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall in the Best Messaging Security Solution category and the Barracuda Web Application Firewall in the Best Web Application Security Solution category. This is the sixth consecutive year that Barracuda Networks and its products have been named finalists in the Reader Trust Award competition, which honors best-in-class security products and services.

The three products were selected from more than 600 entries submitted in more than 31 technology categories. All finalists will be reviewed and winners will be chosen by the Reader Trust Voting Panel – comprised of security and technology experts from large, medium and small enterprises from all major vertical markets – representing the wide distribution of SC Magazine readers.

"To be recognized by such a distinguished awards program again this year is an honor and tribute to Barracuda Networks’ commitment to provide our cusSC Awards tomers with powerful solutions that meet their security needs,” said Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks.

As the industry’s preeminent awards program, the annual SC Awards has recognized security’s key contributors and outstanding products for more than a decade. The SC Awards are designed to honor the professionals, companies and products that help fend off the myriad security threats confronted in today's corporate world. Individuals, brands and solutions recognized in the program address not only the security challenges prominent today, but also the emerging threat landscape of tomorrow.

Winners of this year’s SC Awards will be announced at a gala dinner and award ceremony to be held in San Francisco on Tuesday, March 2, 2010.

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

Barracuda Networks Chief Research Officer to Speak at INTEROP New York

Barracuda Networks Inc. today announced that Chief Research Officer and Vice President of Cloud Services Dr. Paul Judge will present at this week’s INTEROP New York conference. Joined by Paul Roberts, senior security analyst at The 451 Group, Dr. Judge will explore how companies can protect corporate assets as more employees connect to the network from outside the office.

Session: Your Employees Are Roaming - Is Your Confidential Information?
Thursday, Nov. 19, at 9:00 a.m., Location: Jacob Javits Convention Center
Corporate networks extend beyond office walls. Users access the Web from laptops or mobile devices in airports, hotels and more, and continue to leverage their personal devices for business. This sparks heightened security concerns in the enterprise. Join Dr. Judge and Roberts for a panel discussion that explores the expanding corporate perimeter and how to ensure that even while employees roam, sensitive corporate data is not compromised.

Dr. Judge has more than 10 years of experience focused on creating innovative security technologies for businesses. He joined Barracuda Networks as its CRO and VP of Cloud Services following the company’s acquisition of award-winning cloud-security provider Purewire in October 2009.

Roberts covers enterprise security for The 451 Group, including topics such as malware detection, identity management and network access control. He brings more than 13 years of IT industry experience to his role, having previously spent five years covering the enterprise security space as a writer and editor for industry publications including InfoWorld, eWEEK and The IDG News Service.

Barracuda Networks also will showcase its full line of award-winning security, networking and storage solutions at booth 922. INTEROP New York takes place Nov. 16-20 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

Barracuda Networks Announces Enhanced EMEA Channel Partner Program

Barracuda Networks today announced enhancements to its channel program throughout Europe. Highlights of the program include deal registration for increased sales protection as well as a tiered reseller plan to reward successful partners with greater discounts and to aid partner recruitment.

Improvements to the channel program are being implemented following months of extensive executive discussions between Barracuda Networks channel executives and partners throughout Europe.

“We invested three months of executive time meeting with partners and customers to define the optimal programme and have built in changes with the feedback from those discussions in mind,” said Michael Hughes, vice president of channels at Barracuda Networks. “Barracuda Networks provides 25,000 leads to the worldwide channel every year and we have developed this program to both reward resellers that perform well for Barracuda Networks and to encourage new resellers to join us.”

For the first time partners in Europe can take advantage of online deal registration to record deals early on and prevent the customer opportunity from becoming available to other channel partners. Barracuda Networks has also restructured its reseller base into three levels – Diamond, Platinum and Authorized.

“The new structure is expected to provide a number of things for our partners including greater control over the sales process, incentive for partners to become certified and trained, as well as to encourage more partners to offer Barracuda Networks solutions as the first on their line card for customers,” said Hughes.

Benefits for partners can include up to 30 percent discounts (including deal registration discount of up to 10 percent), rapid replacement, teaming agreements, customized support, sales support in the form of qualified leads, 50 percent not-for-resale discount, as well as the opportunity to sell premium support and more depending on partner level. There is also an initial 90-day pilot program to allow partners an opportunity to meet the qualification criteria for the next status level.

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall Introduces New Features

Barracuda Networks Inc. today announced the addition of new features targeted at larger service provider and enterprise customers. Major features include delegated administration for multitenant services, new administrative roles for help desk personnel, and enforcement of granular site-to-site email encryption policies.

“While much of Barracuda Networks’ success has been in selling to small-to-medium sized businesses, the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall serves a significant base of customers who have large email volumes including enterprises, large educational institutions, government agencies, and service providers,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks. “By enabling larger service providers to delegate administration and policy across different levels of staff, the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall becomes even more economical as a multitenant solution – all with no per user or per message fees.”

Delegated domain administration enables customers of service providers offering spam and virus filtering services based on Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls to customize their own filtering policy, deliver blocked email, and run traffic reports. Individual domain administrators can also delegate responsibility to their own help desk employees to support their own user populations. By delegating administrative tasks, service providers can reduce their own help desk costs while offering more flexibility to their end customers. Delegated domain administration is available Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall 600 models and higher. Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall 300 models and higher will now feature domain help desk roles.

Nines B.V., a high-value service provider headquartered in the Netherlands and an early user of the new firmware features, provides managed incoming and outgoing spam and virus filtering using a high availability cluster of Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls for a number of clients including EMI Music, Qualcomm, Johnson & Johnson and Ernst & Young. With delegated domain administration and increased administrative functions for help desk personnel, Nines’ clients are now able to directly manage their own domains without having to rely on the Nines IT staff.

“Allowing our clients to have greater direct access to their spam and virus filtering policies for their own domains has helped us to minimize administration costs for our own IT team and has allowed us to focus on other aspects of the business,” said Matthey van Ramele, manager for Nines B.V.

In addition, the full Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall product line can now enforce granular site-to-site email encryption policy using the industry standard SMTP/TLS protocol.

“As organizations develop their own internal policies to comply with regulations such as PCI DSS, Gramm-Leach Bliley, Sarbanes-Oxley, and HIPAA, they have recognized the need to encrypt transmission of confidential email over public networks,” said Pao. “While traditional end-to-end encryption technologies have been plagued with interoperability and usability issues, site-to-site encryption has continued to increase in usage because of the ubiquity of support by email servers on the Internet and transparency to users using traditional email clients.”

Formerly restricted to global policy management, the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall now enables administrators to specify email encryption requirements between specified sender and recipient domains, enabling administrators to force encryption between close business partners, while allowing unencrypted communication with others.

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

Barracuda Networks Launches Integrated Local and Cloud-based Backup Solution

Barracuda Networks Inc. today announced the European launch of its Barracuda Backup Service, a complete local and cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery solution for any size or type of business.

The Barracuda Backup Service is an affordable, integrated local and offsite data backup solution that combines the Barracuda Backup Server for rapid restoration on the local network with the Barracuda Backup Service, a secure cloud-based backup service hosted by two data centres in Europe.

UK-based FitFlop, a global health and well-being footwear brand, was introduced to the Barracuda Backup Service via Ventrus, a trusted local Barracuda Networks reseller. FitFlop selected the Barracuda Backup Service for its relatively low start-up and running costs and its ability to provide an immediate response in an emergency.

“The Barracuda Backup Service was ideal for a fast growing company like us,” said Simon O’Sullivan, head of IT for FitFlop. “No other cloud-based storage solution came close to matching Barracuda Networks for its tiny footprint, granularity of control and incredibly simple licensing model.”

Complete Data Backup Solution
The Barracuda Backup Service provides a complete and affordable SME / SMB data backup solution from a single vendor. The Barracuda Backup Service can back up data directly from nearly all operating systems and comes included with backup software to natively provide application backups of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server and Windows System State. The combination of inclusive backup software, integrated local storage, data de-duplication technology, and offsite cloud-based storage, found in the Barracuda Backup Service, leads to significantly simplified deployment and cost savings for customers.

“Customers in Europe, particularly those in the midmarket, have trended toward on-site solutions for data backup and recovery primarily due to security and privacy concerns,” said Carla Arend, program manager, IDC European Storage Software and Services Research. “Barracuda Networks’ approach in combining a server on site for fast restore of data locally as well as replicating data offsite should serve this market, as well as larger enterprise customers, very well because it has a very reasonable pricepoint and is backed by strong security for data protection.”

“The Barracuda Backup Service offers Europe’s SMBs and SMEs access to enterprise-class data protection and disaster recovery at a fraction of the traditional cost,” said Michael Hughes, Barracuda Networks vice president of channels, EMEA. “Simple to use and occupying up to 1/50th of the normal backup storage footprint, customers are welcoming the Barracuda Backup Service for its convenience as much as for its exceptional value.”

The Barracuda Backup Service safely maintains backup data offsite using efficient and secure data transfers to offsite data centres and provides industry-leading policy management for data retention. Replication techniques in the Barracuda Backup Service benefit from advanced data de-duplication technology designed by Barracuda Networks to conserve bandwidth and reduce storage requirements. Capabilities of the Barracuda Backup Service include:

* Automatic Backups. Administrators set schedules to run backups throughout the day, eliminating many risks associated with manual backup techniques.
* Included Backup Software. The Barracuda Backup Service provides all of the backup software most businesses require, including native backups of Microsoft Exchange and SQL Servers and Windows System State.
* Full Local Backup and Restore. The Barracuda Backup Server offers sufficient storage for a complete copy of an organization’s current and historical data. Administrators can restore data directly from the Barracuda Backup Server at fast speeds.
* Secure, Cloud-based Offsite Storage. Affordable cloud-based storage provides an offsite data backup for disaster recovery. Multiple layers of encryption, including AES 256-bit, protect the integrity of data transferred and stored offsite at two data centres on highly redundant disk-based hardware with the Barracuda Backup Service.
* Data De-Duplication. The Barracuda Backup Service reduces the storage and transfer requirements for backups by analyzing each file at the bit level and only copying, transferring and archiving new bit sequences. This advanced de-duplication technology is applied within a single file's revision history as well as across the entire backup volume.
* Multiple Location Centralized Management. The Barracuda Backup Service allows for the management of backup infrastructure across multiple remote locations from a single administration login. Service alert notifications are automatically sent to administrators.
* Regulatory Compliance. The Barracuda Backup Service encompasses the security requirements to cover a wide range of industry-specific regulations.

The Barracuda Backup Service user interface makes it easy to manage and back up data on the Barracuda Backup Server and to schedule reoccurring offsite data backups to the cloud. In addition, Barracuda Central, an advanced operations centre, provisions and monitors the health of the Barracuda Backup Service and provides 24x7 technical support and emergency restoration assistance in the event of disaster or local backup system failure.

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

Barracuda Networks Acquires Purewire

Barracuda Networks Inc., the worldwide leader in content security appliances, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Purewire Inc. (Purewire™), an award-winning SaaS-based secure Web gateway provider. This combination broadens the company’s cloud-based platform, enabling it to extend its market leading security solutions across a variety of delivery models including appliance, SaaS and hybrid. Additionally, this acquisition deepens Barracuda Networks’ security research and threat detection capabilities.

“The addition of Purewire’s award-winning Web security-as-a-service platform to our security product portfolio greatly enhances our ability to provide customers with the best solution for their network environment,” said Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks. “Further, this combination expands our set of SaaS-based solutions, provides new infrastructure and technology, and creates enormous potential to extend our cloud services across all of our rapidly growing product lines.”

With more than 85,000 customers worldwide, Barracuda Networks is the global volume leader in integrated network solutions for comprehensive email, Internet, Web and IM protection. Using its established worldwide sales channel, Barracuda Networks will introduce the Purewire product line to a broader global market. As part of the acquisition, Mike Van Bruinisse, Purewire co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, joins Barracuda Networks as Vice President of Enterprise Sales; and Dr. Paul Judge, Purewire co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, joins Barracuda Networks as Vice President of Cloud Services and Chief Research Officer.

“There is incredible synergy between the leadership teams of both companies; as former founding members of CipherTrust, Mike, Paul and other Purewire executives have strong roots in email security and in delivering renowned enterprise-class products,” said Drako. “Under their leadership, Purewire has helped to shape the Web security SaaS market in a very short period of time, and we believe that our combined forces will make Barracuda Networks the dominant player in the security SaaS market.”

Award-winning SaaS Delivery
This acquisition expands Barracuda Networks’ existing SaaS and hybrid solutions. The new infrastructure, technology and team will be combined with Barracuda Networks’ existing SaaS capabilities to deliver a diverse portfolio of SaaS-based solutions to meet customer and market demands.

The award-winning Purewire Web Security Service is available worldwide to Barracuda Networks customers and partners. Barracuda Networks plans to maintain support for Purewire’s existing services as well as to increase investment in product development across the company’s SaaS-based platform. Barracuda Networks will continue to work with all Purewire’s sales channel partners, expanding the depth of its worldwide sales reach, and enabling them to provide better service and support to all existing and future customers.

“The Web security SaaS market is expected to be the fastest growing segment of the Web security market over the next four years,” said Brian Burke, IDC security products program director. “Barracuda Networks is known for bringing strong solutions to market very quickly through its expansive worldwide channel. This deep global footprint combined with industry-leading technologies and a strong team of veteran information security executives from both Purewire and Barracuda Networks puts the company in a good position to be a leading contender in the Web security SaaS market.”

Groundbreaking Security Research
Barracuda Networks and Purewire’s expansive research and threat analysis teams will combine to form the new Barracuda Labs™. Barracuda Labs will be tasked with continuing to develop the global threat intelligence technologies that fuel and maintain all Barracuda Networks’ product lines including the cloud-based Barracuda Energize Updates. Comprehensive threat intelligence information that builds upon data collected through PurewireTrust.org, TweetGrade.com, Purewire Web Security Blog and BarracudaCentral.org will be made available in the coming weeks via BarracudaLabs.com.

“Over the last two years, Purewire has developed key approaches to malware analysis and threat data mining,” said Dr. Judge. “With the formation of Barracuda Labs, we will be combining that expertise with Barracuda’s existing threat detection capabilities, and the collective intelligence fueled by Barracuda Networks’ more than 85,000 appliances deployed in 80 countries to create the most substantial view of network security threats in the world.”

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com

Barracuda Networks Acquires Controlling Interest in phion

Barracuda Networks Inc., the worldwide leader in content security appliances, and phion AG (WBAG:PHIO), an Austria-based provider of enterprise security solutions, today announced the successful completion of the Voluntary Public Takeover Bid as a result of meeting the acceptance threshold of more than 75 percent of the phion shares through the recently completed public tender offer.

“phion has defined the next generation of enterprise firewall technology, bringing the security, management, and reliability features needed to thwart today’s ever-changing threat environment,” said Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks. “phion’s technology combined with Barracuda Networks’ world class marketing, sales and support infrastructure will bring this next generation of firewall technology to the more than 85,000 Barracuda Networks customers worldwide.”

phion customers will benefit from Barracuda Networks’ worldwide network of sales and support operations newly extended to phion products. The combined Barracuda Networks and phion product portfolios will result in increased sales opportunities for the partners of both companies.

“Barracuda Networks is a well-established global brand, and we believe that Barracuda Networks’ expansive channel presence and commitment to the customer experience will help to accelerate the global traction of the phion product offerings,” said Wieland Alge, CEO of phion.

To Purchase Barracuda Products visit http://www.barraguard.com