Barracuda Networks Discounts for K-12 Schools

Barracuda Networks Inc. launched an initiative to help private and public K-12 schools, school districts and state education agencies in North America to rid their networks of the complexity of tape backups and protect students online by harnessing the power of the cloud through its Barracuda Backup Service and Barracuda Web Security Flex solutions.

"In an environment where more is expected, but fewer resources are provided, and where students and staff can access the Web from campus, district offices, and home, the cloud can be a powerful tool for secure Web browsing and data protection for K-12 customers," said Michael Hughes, vice president of worldwide sales for Barracuda Networks. "Barracuda Networks recognizes that tight budgets often prohibit customers in the education market from fully exploring valuable technologies and solutions. With our ‘Think Cloud’ campaign, we are enabling our partners to work with their K-12 customers to educate them on the technological benefits and cost-efficiencies of moving to the cloud."

As part of the Barracuda Networks ‘Think Cloud‘, Barracuda Networks is offering a 20 percent discount on the Barracuda Backup Service, which provides full local data backup combined with offsite storage, and 30 percent off on the Barracuda Web Security Flex, which delivers cloud-based malware protection, URL filtering and application control with the flexible deployment options.

"School IT organizations must evolve with the shifting technology needs of students, teachers and administrators who are now equipped with extremely capable and powerful mobile technology," said Jeffrey Bajgot, executive vice president and CTO of the Center for Educational Leadership and Technology (CELT). "Continuous mobile device endpoint security and content filtering delivered via flexible cloud-based platforms that provide protection regardless of location will solve a key concern with supporting the mobility movement."

"In addition, an advantage of new cloud-deployed solutions is unified and single cloud-based management, which streamlines the management and reporting functions while reducing the administrative burden on the IT organization," added Bajgot.

Flexible, Easy Deployment and Management
With Barracuda Web Security Flex, the economics center around the size of the total user population protected, rather than the specifics of the deployment. Even when additional gateway hardware is required for deployment, costs involve a simple one-time setup fee. There are no additional recurring charges associated with the maintenance of that hardware. There are no additional software license fees for agents. Barracuda Web Security Flex pricing effectively ends acquisition risks for educational institutions.

Barracuda Web Security Flex
deployment options include:

• Web Security Gateway – available as a hardware or virtual appliance; ideal for main campus sites
• Web Security Agent – tamper-proof software agent for laptop users
• SaaS – cloud-based filtering ideal for remote students and staff

Barracuda Web Security Flex includes a unified management framework via the Barracuda Portal for global policy enforcement and centralized reporting, across all locations and devices. The portal includes directory integration for group- or individual-based policies, pre-defined security policies, and security, compliance and usage reports.

Web Security: Sky’s the Limit
Barracuda Web Security Flex allows school IT staffs to harness the power of Web 2.0 applications while protecting students, staff and administrators against fast moving, aggressive Web threats. The solution includes cloud-based malware analysis, advanced URL filtering, and extensive coverage for content types and applications, enabling administrators to regulate Web content and Web 2.0 applications.

In addition, Barracuda Networks also recently launched Barracuda Profile Protector, a free tool that enables users to that protects social networking users against malicious threats on Facebook and Twitter. The application analyzes user-generated content posted to profiles and is able to block or remove malicious or suspicious content. This includes malicious URLs, embedded photos and/or videos on Facebook and Twitter pages and news feeds.

Backups to the Cloud – No Tape Required
The Barracuda Backup Service is an integrated local and offsite data backup and disaster recovery solution. The Barracuda Backup Service combines an onsite appliance with a service subscription that replicates data to the cloud two offsite locations. Combining local and offsite storage provides onsite backups for the fastest restore times and secure, offsite storage for disaster recovery. The Barracuda Backup Subscription plans provide diverse offsite storage at affordable service fees and the ability to scale to meet increasing data requirements. The Barracuda Backup Server is an appliance installed onsite to provide full local backup of current and historical data, backup performance and fast network-based local restores. The Barracuda Backup Server also de-duplicates data at the origin to minimize the unnecessary storage of the same file, while providing efficient and secure offsite transfer using compression and encryption.

Barracuda Networks ‘Think Cloud’ Promotion Terms
Barracuda Networks is offering discounts to qualified private and public K-12 schools, school districts and state education agencies in North America on its Barracuda Backup Service and the new Barracuda Web Security Flex at the following discounts (for purchase made by June, 30, 2011):

• 30% discount for Barracuda Web Security Flex
• 20% discount for Barracuda Backup Service

Barracuda Backup Subscription plan starts at a regular price of €69/month for 100GB.