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After copying all files to it, the customer sends the appliance back to Zoolz, who process the data and move the files to the customer’s account. Data on each appliance is encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption. The Snowmobile is a 45-foot long ruggedized shipping container that can store up to 100PB. The Snowball device is a small, ruggedized appliance, which can store up to 50TB. Amazon has two different tamper-resistant secure storage appliances, Snowball or Snowmobile, which Zoolz sends to the customer who connects it to their network and copies all their data to it via NFS mount. Zoolz leverages Amazon’s (AWS) Snowball service to handle the initial ingest of very large data amounts. Zoolz also provides a Hybrid+ option that allows backups to local NAS, SAN and external storage devices as well as to the Zoolz cloud service. Users can select whether to place a file into Glacier (Cold Storage), or into Hot Storage for immediate access.
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#Zoolz about software#
How it WorksĪfter installing the client software on each client system, data is backed up to the Zoolz Intelligent Cloud. When first setting up an account, customers can define the quantities of “hot” and “cold” storage as well as selecting options for eDiscovery, HD video streaming and OCR. Their basic business plan provides 100GB of “hot storage” (AWS S3) and 500GB of “cold storage” (AWS Glacier).
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Zoolz partners with Amazon (AWS) and leverages its infrastructure to store and manage data backed up to the Zoolz Intelligent Cloud. While Zoolz Intelligent Cloud provides standard backup and recovery features, like deduplication, compression and block level backups, it adds some unique eDiscovery features and options not normally found in standard backup products. This unique combination provides enhanced data protection, organization, discovery, distribution and secure data access. Zoolz combines artificial intelligence with data protection, and conventional management tools and processes. It is an innovative data protection and management platform with some unique features. Zoolz, a UK-based company, now offers the Zoolz Intelligent Cloud service. Consequently, it makes sense to consider cloud-based backup as a service (BaaS) solutions that can provide data protection that meets compliance requirements at a reasonable cost. But, simply storing their data in the cloud does not guarantee compliant data protection. Like large organizations, smaller ones are also turning to the cloud to help reduce or control their current infrastructure and management costs, as they also have to deal with ever-increasing amounts of unstructured data. Nevertheless, they still face the same regulatory and compliance requirements, and potential fines for non-compliance, as large organizations. While large organizations usually have the infrastructure, software, financial resources and trained technical personnel needed to handle these tasks, many small and medium businesses (SMB) may not.
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This situation becomes even more challenging when dealing with the fact that a lot of an organization’s data now resides on individual end point devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones. It is difficult enough to accomplish these objectives when data is growing exponentially and resides on numerous individual silos such as NAS systems, storage arrays and individual servers in the enterprise. All organizations today, regardless of size, have to deal with a myriad of governmental rules and regulations that require the organizations to retain, secure and protect all of their data in specific ways determined by the governmental body requiring the retention.
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