Overland sets new Compass for backup

March 3, 2009: Overland Storage has unveiled the REO Compass, a new disk-based appliance that moves backup data efficiently and securely between remote sites while seamlessly integrating with existing backup software, policies, VTLs and physical tape libraries.

REO Compass eases the consolidation of data backups from remote sites to a central location for global, optimised backups across all offices and data centres.

It combines block-based data deduplication with compression and AES encryption to transport data between locations with minimal bandwidth and maximum security. Centralised management of all REO Compass appliances facilitates wide-area backup and recovery by enabling administrators to manage data movement policies at multiple sites from a single interface.

This unified control over remote and local data backups and recoveries eliminates the need to ship backup tapes to headquarters or incur costly, manual intervention at remote offices.

Additional data protection innovations provided by REO Compass include: * Automated, policy-based and capacity-optimized backup data movement; * Standards-based backup catalog integration; * Consolidated media tracking and audit trails; * Ability to assign customized data movement policies to backup policies; * Web-based interface to streamline setup and management for “set it and forget it” operation; and * Data integrity with authentication and secondary verification.

According to Ravi Pendekanti, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Overland Storage, the new REO Compass addresses the unique challenges of remote data protection and backup consolidation while filling critical gaps in current solutions.

“Exponential data growth, along with low-bandwidth connectivity and limited IT resources at remote sites, makes it exceedingly difficult for companies to ensure adequate protection of dispersed data,” he explains. “With REO Compass, Overland is answering the call by simplifying data mobility with a purpose-built appliance that makes it easy and economical to automate, manage and integrate the movement of backup data across a WAN.”

REO Compass is available in two rackmount configurations. The REO Compass 100 is a 1U appliance with four enterprise-class SATA hard disk drives, RAID 5 and iSCSI host connectivity. REO Compass 500 is a 2U appliance with 12 enterprise-class SATA drives with iSCSI and optional Fibre Channel host connectivity. Data deduplication, compression and encryption features come standard with both REO Compass models.

Overland’s REO Compass will be available in December from Overland’s channel partners worldwide with a starting price of $US5,107.

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