Arcserve unveils Unified Data Protection 8.0 to defend organisations’ entire infrastructure from accidental data loss and ransomware

Arcserve Southern Africa has revealed that Arcserve, the world’s most experienced data and ransomware protection provider, has unveiled Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) 8.0, which is designed to protect organisations’ entire infrastructure, including hyperconverged, from data loss, cyber criminals and persistent threats like ransomware. This makes Arcserve the only data protection vendor capable of delivering ransomware prevention across hardware, cloud, SaaS and other environments.

According to The State of Ransomware in the US: Reports and Statistics 2020, new tactics like double extortion saw significant adoption in 2020. Cyber criminals around the world are constantly coming up with new tactics to solicit ransom payments, meaning many are not only holding data hostage, but threatening to publish it, and have been increasingly targeting backup data, too. Arcserve has been actively working with Sophos and other key partners to combat this challenge for businesses, enabling them to protect their backup data, no matter where it’s stored.

“Ransomware and malware are among the most serious data threats facing organisations today,” said Phil Goodwin, Research Director, IDC. “IT leaders and business leaders alike recognise these threats that must be addressed urgently. Organisations are looking for comprehensive solutions that address both data protection and data security holistically. Due to its partnership with Sophos, Arcserve is at the forefront of vendors delivering these integrated solutions. Given to the broad deployment of applications in today’s organisations, these solutions must address core, cloud and edge environments, which is what Arcserve aims to do with the release of UDP 8.0.”

Ransomware prevention with Sophos

Arcserve UDP 8.0 prevents ransomware attacks by integrating seamlessly with industry-best cyber security protection from Sophos to protect critical data backup infrastructure. Sophos uses a deep learning neural network, advanced anti-ransomware technology, and more to detect both known and unknown malware to keep backup data safe from malicious activity. Further, Arcserve UDP 8.0 also protects backups from modification with Amazon AWS S3 immutable storage, which is protected by AWS Object Lock.

“The sophistication and targeted approach to attacks, plus the agility of attackers, as evidenced in Sophos’ 2021 Threat Report, means organisations need layers of defence that will protect their data no matter where it is stored. With Arcserve, we are bringing expanded security to both of our customer bases and our channel partners,” said Francois Depayras, Vice-President of OEM at Sophos. “Organisations of all sizes can rest easy knowing their data backups have the same level of protection as the rest of the IT environment. This is critical because attackers are determined to take to victims offline to increase the pressure to get organisations to pay the ransom. Our relationship with Arcserve also helps channel partners provide a wider breadth of data protection and security for their clients.”

New integrations with Nutanix and Oracle

Arcserve UDP 8.0 will now also support backing up Nutanix Files workloads and using Nutanix Objects as a backup target, in addition to continued support of Nutanix AHV for secure disaster recovery and backup of Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI). This will not only protect critical HCI workloads from loss, but also reduce the time spent managing disaster recovery and backup by providing a streamlined, Web-based user interface.

“This integration with Arcserve UDP 8.0 will make it easier for businesses to continuously protect HCI workloads and data,” said Mark Nijmeijer, Senior Director of Product Management – Data Protection at Nutanix. “We have actively been working with the Arcserve team to ensure that backup and recovery of these mission-critical environments doesn’t turn into a time-consuming or cumbersome process, allowing IT professionals to focus their time and effort on higher level data protection strategies. We are very excited about this UDP 8.0 release and will continue to build deeper integrations between our products.”

In addition to now protecting HCI, Arcserve UDP 8.0 protects Oracle database backups from data loss, disasters and ransomware with a native data protection integration through Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN). Through this native integration, Oracle database administrators will be able to backup and recover their entire Oracle installations, including standalone database and RAC clusters. Oracle database administrators will also be able to test their recovery with Arcserve's Assured Recovery feature, integrated with RMAN BACKUP VALIDATE command.

“As IT infrastructures become increasingly more complicated, it’s important that we’re able to help our customers protect their data, no matter where it’s stored,” said Ivan Pittaluga, CTO at Arcserve. “The unveiling of Arcserve UDP 8.0 carries on the company’s tradition of making sure we do just that. We are not only covering data across hardware, SaaS, the cloud and HCI, but we’re also adding in an extra layer of protection by integrating best-in-class cyber security. It’s truly a huge value-add to our partners and end-users.”