SpiderOak Rolls Out Blue Private Cloud

SpiderOak, Inc., the ‘zero-knowledge’ cloud backup, sync and sharing environment, announced the release of SpiderOak Blue Private Cloud.

It is an on-site cloud storage solution that enables organizations to maintain physical control and ownership of all their data in the cloud.

Designed to meet the requirements of enterprises with a mandate to ensure data is kept private, Blue Private Cloud is for enterprises within industry sectors where privacy is required by compliance laws and standards, including legal, medical, education and government.

"One of the primary concerns and hesitations for enterprises looking to move their data into the cloud is the vulnerability and privacy of data stored in the cloud. SpiderOak just solved that problem," said SpiderOak CEO Ethan Oberman. "SpiderOak Blue Private Cloud provides zero-knowledge cloud data encryption in a company’s onsite infrastructure. All cloud data stays on-location and is fully managed by the enterprise using it. Enterprises won’t have to worry anymore about whether their data is leaving the country or third parties are viewing it. Considering how commonplace the consumerization of IT has become, SpiderOak Blue Private Cloud solves a huge industry problem."

Enterprise Cloud Without Consumerization
In a phenomenon known as the consumerization of IT, company workers have been adopting consumer cloud services, such as SugarSync and Dropbox, for the sharing, syncing and storing of enterprise data. Unless enterprises adopt company-approved cloud infrastructures, employees will continue to use consumer tools for their business data.

"Enterprises are under tremendous pressure to protect sensitive data from a myriad of external and internal threats," said Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest. "Between the advancement of BYOD initiatives and the high-profile breaches which have impacted several of the large cloud storage companies, maintaining complete physical control of data in the cloud is emerging as a necessary function of ensuring privacy of data. Cloud storage technology is rapidly advancing; however, while most vendors have focused on sharing, SpiderOak has a clear differentiation from its market competitors because it has built itself from the ground-up as a completely private, ‘zero-knowledge’ offering. The enterprise environment is a perfect fit for this higher standard of privacy in the cloud."

Enterprise info-security policies and NDAs complicate the problem. Law firms, universities, health care corporations and others must adhere to policies that prohibit the disclosure of data to third parties. But consumer and many enterprise cloud infrastructures open up data to third parties, leaving enterprises in a Catch-22 situation.

Blue Private Cloud Removes the Trade-Off
Blue Private Cloud empowers companies to comply with their own data privacy, info-security and auditing requirements in a confidential, onsite cloud storage environment. SpiderOak’s zero-knowledge data encryption system makes it impossible for anyone outside of company IT departments to see data, unless those IT departments have shared it. Because Blue Private Cloud operates onsite, data remains physically and logically within an organization’s control. The result is an ironclad privacy guarantee.

File Storage, Sync and Sharing
in Private Infrastructure
Enterprises can take advantage of their own underused storage hardware to run Blue Private Cloud entirely on their own infrastructure and behind company firewalls.

In addition to constant data protection and backup,
Blue Private Cloud features:

• Sync and backup functionality across OSs
• Easy sharing, both internally and externally
• Unlimited computer connections
• Directory integration
• Single sign on
• Administrative data viewing/restore
• Usage reporting
• Retention of deleted items

Like other SpiderOak products, Blue Private Cloud is easy to provision and roll out, even within large organizations. Enterprises have the option of using either their own hardware or hardware they purchase from SpiderOak. Priced competitively compared to other enterprise storage vendors, Blue Private Cloud is a cloud storage solution that enables organizations to keep control of their cloud data, onsite and behind their own firewalls.