Lost Laptops: A Billion Dollar Problem

Lost Laptops: Billion Dollar Risk

This weekend I came across an incredible report – “The Billion Dollar Lost Laptop Problem” (PDF), published by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Intel. The report highlighted the (true) fact that enterprises are losing billions of dollars from lost laptops.

The report surveyed 329 enterprises to find that they had lost 86,455 laptops in past one year.  Using another report “Cost of a Lost Laptop” (PDF), they quantified the total loss for the surveyed enterprise to be $2.2  Billion.

Here is the quick math from both these reports –

  1. On an avg. 9.44% of corporate laptops are lost/damaged every year
  2. Education and health care face the highest risk of about 10.5%
  3. 76% of these laptops are lost off-site or during transit
  4. 46% of laptops contain confidential data
  5. Combining the loss of business, confidential data, time and hardware the avg. cost of lost laptop is $25,000
  6. Backup and encryption can significantly reduce the cost (by approx. 40%)

I would be on my way to India this Tuesday evening. Will make sure my data is backed up and I don’t take it out at Starbucks :)

 

InSync v4 Now Available for Mac & Linux

The inSync client for Mac (OS X)  is finally here !

This was definitely the most requested feature and most eagerly awaited.

Although I agree that we did take much more time than initially promised, but this definitely was a much shorter wait compared to getting Beatles on the iTunes store (and I am really hoping that they do announce it tomorrow, Nov 16th)

The client for Mac is part of the new v4.0.1 release (release notes). The Mac version incorporates all the key features available in the Windows version including the app-aware data deduplication, WAN Optimization and search.

The new v4.0.1 release, also offers a 10% performance improvement for incremental backups over inSync v4.0. The inSync server is now equipped with a VSS writer, making it simpler for any VSS-aware backup software to backup inSync server.

Download the new release here – http://www.druva.com/download/insync

Reaching New Heights

From releasing the next version of inSync, to setting up shop in the UK, we’ve had an action packed September. Here’s a few media snippets that showcase our recent achievements.

Druva Software is one of the Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 25 Fast Growth Companies and, one of the Top 6 Companies to Watch out For.  The list has been put together by the AII World Network. Click here to read the report.

Druva Software is one of Business World’s Change Agents featured in this month’s edition. The article features 10 emerging companies with the potential to change the contours of the Indian Infotech Industry. Click here to read the complete article.

Says Manek, writing for ZDNet: “… Data deduplication and WAN optimisation have been well-established technologies in the storage and enterprise backup…  But this is the first time that they’ve been brought together in a laptop backup system. …if it works, it could be all what you need.”

Click here for complete article.

Caroline Donnelly writes for CRN: “If you lose the data stored on laptops and servers, your business is pretty    much ruined… (inSync) significantly reduces the bandwidth and storage required to back up data on laptops.”

Click here for complete article.

Jean-Jacques Maleval The Storage Newsletter features Druva commencing operations in the UK with the release of inSync  v4.0  saying: “…inSync’s application-aware deduplication approach makes the backup process more efficient and  cost- effective by significantly reducing storage bandwidth and capacity needs.”  Click here for complete article.

Chris Mellor, writing for The Register on inSync: “The software sniffs or checks what type of network connection ….and optimizes the style of network transmission, with smart bandwidth throttling, so as to minimize the network burden.”  Click here for complete article.

Steve Evans for CBR writes of inSync: “…faster and less obtrusive than other products on the market.” Click here for complete article.

Claus Edge Blog

Says Claus Egge, writing of Druva inSync v4.0 on his blog: “Mobility has complicated backup and restore for many years. By addressing the pain points of bandwidth and performance (these) mobile computers finally stand a chance of getting proper protection with Druva.”  Click here to read Claus Egge’s blog.

Say Hello to Blackbird !

With inSync v4.0 going live last week, Druva showcased the new Blackbird storage engine which introduces a new concept called – “Application Aware Data Deduplication”. This new engine although currently only available in inSync, will form the core of all future product offerings.

The idea of “app-aware deduplication” emerged from the fact that complex applications like MS Outlook or Exchange need much more intelligent deduplicate removal than simple block based approach.

Each data block in PST is of fixed size and usually contains a header and a footer (ref: libpst ) which makes it impossible for simple dedupe approaches to identify block boundaries and hence restricting deduplication accuracy to just 30-40%.

Application aware data deduplication depends upon APIs exposed by the application to understand the construct of on-disk data and deduplicate at the logical-block or message level. This guarantees 100% deduplication accuracy and faster processing of data.

Another interesting change is shift from PostgreSQL database to no-SQL Oracle embedded database. This small (less than 1MB in size) embedded database removes the heavy “SQL” and networking layer between the server and database, hence greatly improving performance and scalability. The new engine can now support 16TB of dedupe data and about 200 parallel backups.

In a nutshell, the Blackbird engine will have the following features -

  1. App-Aware deduplication
  2. Light-weight and highly scalable
  3. Simple to install and zero-maintenance
  4. Near-CDP – timeline/event based near-continuous backups
  5. Search enabled restores
  6. Replication (to be showcased soon :)

InSync v4.0
InSync v4 is definitely a new benchmark for laptop backup. I am extremely confident that if anyone tries this solution will never buy anything else for laptop backup. With new storage, redesigned WAN Optimization and dashboard, its clearly leaps and bounds ahead of what’s available in the market.

More about new features – http://www.druva.com/insync/version-4-0
Download inSync v4 – http://www.druva.com/download/insync