Press Release (U.S.)

Liverpool FC Cuts Data Loss Risks and IT Admin With Asigra's Remote Backup Software
Backup Technology provides Backup and Recovery Service to Secure All Data from the Stadium, Training Grounds and Online and Shop Sales

TORONTO — March 19, 2007 — Asigra™, the technology leader in agentless backup and recovery software for service providers targeting the growing managed storage services market, today announced that Backup Technology, a leading UK disaster recovery provider, is providing Liverpool FC with Asigra's agentless distributed backup and recovery software, Televaulting. Liverpool FC needed to protect its data to ensure that if lost, the data could be quickly restored so that the daily running of the club would not be impacted.

Backup Technology currently protects critical business data across Liverpool FC’s three main sites: the main stadium (Anfield), and the two training grounds (Melwood and the Academy), which are geographically dispersed. The backup also includes data generated by the online ticketing information and the club shop (where point-of-sale data is generated), all emails from every office location, as well as desktops and laptops of key members of staff.

Liverpool FC was previously using legacy tape-based backup and disaster recovery (DR). Switching to disk-to-disk from tape was essential for Liverpool FC to increase the speed of the backup and recovery, as well as to guarantee a 100% success rate in retrieving lost data. With tape backup every time a backup of the i-Series based ticketing system was carried out, the entire system had to be closed down, limiting backups to once a day only. Now, Backup Technology carries out a backup for Liverpool FC on an hourly basis without interruptions to the system, even during peak periods.

“The Backup Technology online service has eliminated the ongoing hidden costs and wasted man hours we were experiencing with tape backup, such as buying new tapes, switching tapes, and transferring tapes to and from the storage depot. Our IT staff are now freed up to concentrate on developing new technologies to increase the productivity of the business,” commented Ken Webster, IT Manager of Liverpool FC. “With the Asigra software we are now protecting all our emails as well as the data from our laptop users, when they are on the move. This provides peace of mind for both the commercial and corporate sides of our business."

According to Ashley Harding, Network Manager of Liverpool FC, "Should disaster strike, such as our PCs being permanently damaged, lost or stolen, or the online ticketing system crashing, this would be a major concern for us as a highly competitive business, and a high-profile premiership football club. With Backup Technology we know we can retrieve any lost data within minutes rather than days and with encryption of data in-flight and at-rest, stolen data cannot be read. The bare metal restore solution means that even if our entire technology systems go down and we lose equipment, we can be up and running again within a single day.”

Liverpool FC found the simplicity of the capacity-based licensing model offered by the Asigra software and the Backup Technology service appealing. Because Liverpool FC only pays for the amount of data that is protected and not on a license fee per server, desktop or laptop, they only need to pay for the storage they use.

Ritchie Fiddes, Head of Sales at Backup Technology, stated, “The main reason why Liverpool FC chose our backup and recovery service and Asigra's software was RTO (recovery time objective). In a fast-paced business like a premiership football, you can't afford to wait for days for a tape to be returned to the office in order to restore lost, damaged, or stolen data. A fully automated and internet-based backup and recovery service was essential for Liverpool FC and using Asigra’s Televaulting software, we were able to exceed all of Liverpool FC’s requirements.”

Backup Technology has provided Liverpool FC with a spare redundant server, so that should an existing server break down, the data can be restored from local storage to the spare server in a matter of minutes.

Eran Farajun, executive vice president of Asigra noted that Asigra’s agentless structure, capacity-based licensing and comprehensive SLA software ensure that Backup Technology can provide a cost-efficient and leading-edge backup and recovery service to Liverpool FC. “Customers like one of Europe’s elite football clubs require the highest levels of assurance that their business-critical data is safe and guaranteed to be retrievable at a moment’s notice. As Backup Technology is Asigra’s go to provider, their service and expertise ensures that Liverpool FC’s data is continuously protected.”

Backup Technology is planning on adding Asigra’s latest software tool of Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to Liverpool FC’s range of backup services in the next few weeks. CDP continuously monitors and stores any changes to files in real time and preserves copies of all previous versions of the file or object, so that the user can restore data to the point just before a data corruption took place. This tool therefore minimizes data loss and helps to achieve the Recovery Time Objective.

Key Backup Technology Service Features:
Agentless Architecture: All of Backup Technology’s solutions are fully agentless. To protect an entire organization’s data, only one piece of software running on one device across the network is needed. Asigra’s disk-based WAN-optimized architecture shatters the limitations of traditional distributed-backup software as all backups are highly secure, being disk-to-disk and with up to 256 AES encryption, whereby data is encrypted in-flight and at-rest. The software provides grid-based performance and capacity scaling for virtually unlimited data growth, allowing the software to support any backup load and multiple platforms and operating systems including Windows, Linux, UNIX, MAC, Novell & IBM, without the need to install and configure separate clients.

Bare Metal Restore: Any disaster that destroys a computer system requires a bare metal restore to ensure the minimum downtime and disruption to a business. Once new hardware has been configured with a fresh operating system of the same family as the original computer, users can then restore the complete system, including: data, profiles, registry & system state, programs & service pack files from Local Storage.

Local Storage: The Local Storage module can help address disaster recovery requirements by saving a copy of the latest version of files at a local storage location. If a restore is needed, the file can be quickly restored from the local environment, at LAN speed, without connecting through the online data vault.

Message Level Restore: In addition to the full Exchange, Novell GroupWise and Lotus Notes backups, individual e-mails, contacts & calendar items can also be restored while users are logged into their Outlook, Novell or Lotus Notes. As the backup is incremental, restores can be done on any of the generations of data stored in the online vault.

Hot Database & Open File Backup: Backups of SQL, Oracle, DB2 & Access databases can be done "Hot" while running, allowing customers to schedule backups throughout the day without disrupting users. Core business data is often contained in the databases, so customers can protect these on an hourly basis. Open files can also be dealt with, so the typical Word and Excel documents can be backed up even while users are working on them, along with other common applications.

Continuous Data Protection: CDP continuously monitors and stores any changes to files in real time and preserves copies of all previous versions of the file or object, so that the user can restore data to the point just before a data corruption took place. This tool therefore minimizes data loss and helps to achieve the Recovery Time Objective.

How the backup works
Liverpool FC’s main stadium, Anfield, hosts a single Asigra Televaulting DS-Client, which discovers all servers, desktops and laptops connected to the network before automating the backup of all local data assets from Anfield stadium, Melwood and Academy training grounds and the merchandise warehouse. The merchandise warehouse runs off a UNIX system, which manages all of the point-of-sale software. This data is included in the backup, as is the data generated from the laptops of key members of staff, wherever they are located. Before the backup data set is transmitted to Backup Technology’s secure data center, the Asigra Televaulting software analyzes the data, finds new and changed file blocks, eliminates duplicate files across all locations and further compresses the residue bytes to ensure the backup set is as compact as possible. The software then encrypts the data before sending it over an IP- WAN connection to a centralized Asigra Televaulting DS-System server, located in Backup Technology’s data center, which consolidates the backup data from all distributed sites. That DS-System server is then protected just like any other server within the data center as part of the organization’s ongoing data protection policies. As an additional level of data protection, Backup Technology has configured the DS-System server to replicate the vault to a second secure back up site.

About Liverpool FC
Since its formation in 1892 Liverpool Football Club has always and continues to enjoy a unique relationship with its loyal and dedicated supporter base. Often referred to as England’s greatest ever football club, Liverpool FC has won a plethora of cups throughout its history and also in recent years, including: Champions League Winners in 2005; and FA Cup, Worthington Cup and UEFA Cup Winners in 2001. For more information, please visit www.liverpoolfc.tv.

About Backup Technology
Backup Technology are Asigra’s “Go to provider” specialising in the provision of Secure, Automated, Offsite Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions for SME’s and Enterprises. The company currently protects in excess of 100 million files for customers located throughout Europe and the USA by providing tailored solutions scalable for unlimited growth, supporting all major Operating systems, Databases and E-mail formats. For more information please visit www.backup-technology.co.uk or call 0870 3503600.

About Asigra
Asigra is the award-winning leader in remote office/branch office (ROBO) online backup and recovery for enterprises and managed backup service providers. The company's flagship product, Televaulting, is used by global enterprises in the financial, insurance, legal, government, healthcare and retail industries with more than three petabytes of data protected. Asigra technology is used by hundreds of service providers worldwide who offer backup managed services to companies ranging from SMBs to Global 2000 enterprises. The agentless remote site backup and recovery solution provides simple, centralized management of the data protection process while eliminating the capital and operational expenses associated with agent-based solutions. Founded in 1986, Asigra is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with partner offices around the world. For more information, visit www.asigra.com.