Press Release (U.K.)

Property Developer Stanhope plc Moves from Tape Backup to Asigra’s Online Backup and Recovery Software
hSo:VAULT Provides Ease of Use and Fast Data Recovery for Business Continuity and Reliable Data Protection

London, 10 September 2007: Asigra, the technology specialist in online and agentless backup and recovery software, today announced that commercial property developer, Stanhope plc, has dispensed with outmoded tape backups in favour of an automated online backup service from managed service provider, hSo.

Stanhope’s data is now backed up automatically using hSo:VAULT, a managed service built upon Asigra’s Televaulting software. The daily backups are automated and include file, database and email, amounting to around 400 gigabytes of compressed data. hSo:VAULT provides Stanhope with confidence that if business critical data is lost, it can be retrieved at a moment’s notice and from any location.

Paul Hargreaves, project director at Stanhope plc, commented: “We are an information-reliant business, with large graphics files that are vital for our building projects. Should we lose any data, we are assured with the Asigra technology and the hSo service that we can quickly recover the data in minutes rather than days, avoiding interruption to projects. Moving from tape to online backup and recovery means that the service runs itself; we no longer have to remember to back up our data every night.”

Stanhope has already benefited from the switch; the company has experienced data losses and corrupted data since the implementation, and has been able to recover the data within minutes. In the past, a single data recovery from tape took days; tapes had to be found and sent back to the office, significantly disrupting the business function.

Hargreaves continues: “We now have peace of mind that should there be a major incident, such as a flood or server breakdown, we can quickly and easily restore our network and continue to concentrate on our core business, which increases our uptime and productivity levels.”

Stanhope’s staff work at a wide variety of sites and use laptops to access the company system remotely. Important data which is generated from these laptops also needs to be protected and included in the corporate backups. Eran Farajun, executive vice president of Asigra, said: “The centralised structure of our software means that data generated from any location – whether it is desktop users within the office, remote workers, or laptop users – is included in the daily backups and stored in the hSo data centre. With increasing incidences of laptop theft and loss, this capability is needed more than ever before.”

With only one piece of software required per location and not on each machine on the network, hSo:VAULT offers true value for money in terms of reducing IT management time and delivering a scalable solution to cope with increasing data generation. Systems failure and the threat of downtime are greatly reduced in comparison to the alternative 'onsite' storage of data via tape download.

Chris Evans, managing director of hSo, stated: “Asigra’s technology has an agentless architecture, which enabled us to integrate hSo:VAULT into Stanhope’s existing system with minimal fuss, as well as minimising management costs. Stanhope outsources both their backup and internet hosting to us, significantly increasing the time-efficiency and reliability of its IT network in comparison with the previous tape-based backup solution.”

At Stanhope’s London office, a single Asigra Televaulting DS-Client discovers all servers, desktops and laptops connected to the local network and automates the backup of all local data assets. Agents are not installed on the machines being backed up. Before data is sent to hSo’s data centre, Asigra Televaulting software analyses it, finds new and changed files, eliminates duplicate files and further compresses the data to ensure it is as compact as possible. The software then encrypts the data before sending it over an IP- WAN connection to a centralised Asigra Televaulting DS-System server, located in hSo’s data centre. Data remains encrypted and is stored in the vault. The DS-System server is then protected just like any other server within the data centre as part of the organisation’s ongoing data protection policies. As an additional level of data protection, hSo has configured the DS-System server to replicate the vault to a second secure back up site.

Asigra Televaulting for Service Providers supports a broad range of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Unix, Novell, AS/400 and Macintosh, and protects Oracle, SQL Server, VMware and Exchange Server data. Back-end DS-System software runs on Solaris, Linux and Windows.

About Stanhope plc
Stanhope creates and delivers major commercial and mixed-use developments in London and the South-East. Committed to the principles and processes of urban renewal, Stanhope has more than 20 years experience as developers, development partners and development managers. For more information, please visit www.stanhopeplc.com.

About hSo
Founded in 2000, city-based hSo has witnessed annual growth in excess of 100% and this achievement transforms the company from one of a plethora of technology companies with good ideas into one with a proven business model and a sound financial position. hSo provides a complete range of voice, data and security solutions for businesses. The company's client list includes British Land, Churston Heard, Endemol, The English National Opera and The Salvation Army. hSo was named by the Sunday Times as one of Britain’s fastest growing private tech companies in its ‘Tech-Track 100’ companies for 2006. For more information, please visit www.hso.uk.com.

About Asigra
Asigra is the award-winning leader in remote office/branch office online backup/recovery with more than four petabytes of data under protection. Since 1986, the company’s agentless Televaulting solution has centralised data management and eliminated the pricing and performance problems created by agent-based tape backup software in multi-site enterprises. Televaulting addresses government and international regulatory compliance demands by backing up remote/branch office data to the data centre. Data is encrypted in-flight over the WAN and at-rest. Privately held Asigra is headquartered in Toronto, Canada with partner offices located worldwide. For more information, please visit www.asigra.com.