In this VMblog Expert Q&A, we speak with Ken Barth, Catalogic’s Chief Executive Officer, to learn more about the topic of proactive ransomware protection found within the new Catalogic DPX release.

VMblog:  Let's start with a quick recap on Catalogic Software's history.

Ken Barth:  Catalogic has a 30 year history of protecting data for the world's largest organizations. Our company is known for the reliability and stability of our data protection software, and our excellent customer service. This is why a number of years ago, IBM chose us to be a technology partner to help modernize their data protection portfolio. Last year we successfully exited the IBM relationship as a financially strong company with zero debt and no outside investors, only customer needs to dictate our strategy. That has enabled us to greatly increase our investment in DPX, and launch CloudCasa, which has quickly become the industry leader in cloud-native backup and recovery as-a-service for Kubernetes.

VMblog:  Catalogic Software has introduced the latest version of its DPX data protection software.  Can you refresh us on DPX and its key differentiators?

Barth:  Catalogic DPX is a reliable and secure enterprise backup and recovery solution that supports a vast array of operating systems, applications, and media types. DPX focuses on the most important aspects of data protection: easy administration, fast backup and recovery with minimal system impact, and a first-class customer support team. Our customers love DPX because it works. It is tried and tested and has a long track record of stability and reliability. 

DPX delivers on key data protection use cases, including rapid and granular data recovery, ransomware protection, disaster recovery including bare metal recovery, remote office backup, and governance and compliance via tape or immutable cloud storage for backups. DPX has simple and flexible pricing that is all-inclusive with no additional licensing costs for additional modules, backup repositories (DPX vStor), and offloading or archiving to clouds.

VMblog:  How do backup solutions like DPX help organizations provide more proactive ransomware protection?

Barth:  Estimates are as high as 48% of global organizations have experienced a ransomware attack. It follows that it is absolutely critical that organizations proactively address the key issues surrounding ransomware - how to make your organization more cyber-attack resilient and how to be ready to quickly recover data that has been compromised, and therefore minimize any business impact. There are many methods and solutions available for responding to ransomware other than paying the ransom. Backups have become a key component for recovering from a ransomware attack, providing a verified and immutable copy of an organization's data from which restoration can take place.

VMblog:  What new key features does DPX 4.8.1 include?

Barth:  This week we are announced our new version of DPX 4.8.1, which introduces DPX GuardMode which provides early detection of ransomware to support our ransomware recovery capabilities. We also announced DPX vPlus for data protection for Microsoft 365 and open virtualization platforms. 

DPX GuardMode is complementary to endpoint and edge protection, with its focus on ensuring that organizations have malware free backups for recovery. GuardMode watches file system behavior, looking for anomalies, instead of relying on a specific binary fingerprint. It monitors file shares and maintains and regularly updates over 4000 known ransomware threat patterns, while assessing affected files. GuardMode backs up this extensive forensic layer of protection with a unique deception layer to help detect new malware strains.  

DPX vPlus is a great addition for our current customers who use Microsoft 365 and well as being a viable standalone solution, providing cloud data protection for Microsoft 365 and open virtualization platforms such as KVM, Red Hat, Nutanix, and XenServer.  For SaaS applications like Microsoft 365, it's a common misconception that Microsoft 365 has built in data protection. In reality, it is a shared responsibility, and your data is always your responsibility, especially for meeting traditional backup, regulatory and compliance policies.

VMblog:  You talk about cyber-resiliency.  Can you expand on this topic?

Barth:  Catalogic's core messaging throughout 2022 has centered on adding cyber-resilience to our products, and course to our company operations. It's been a corporate imperative that our Kubernetes backup service, CloudCasa, provides a cyber-resilient, scalable backup and disaster recovery service for cloud native applications. To that end, we introduced a rich set of cyber security posture management tools for CloudCasa.

Now, with DPX, we've greatly increased our investment to ensure we are doing everything to prepare our customers for, to respond to, and recover from cyber threats.  DPX GuardMode is a unique addition to enterprise backups, providing early detection of ransomware to the backup and storage admin teams so they can better do their jobs of protecting and recovering their organization's data.

VMblog:  Are you hosting a webinar to introduce this latest version of DPX?

Barth:  Catalogic will host a live webinar "Adding Cyber Resilience to your Data Protection Strategy with Early Detection"  on Wednesday, July 13th at 10 AM Eastern Time. We'll be talking about data protection trends and challenges, including how cyber-attacks are changing best practices for data protection and recovery as well as storage and backup teams can do strengthen their cyber security posture.  There's still time to register for the webinar or it can be viewed on demand. 

VMblog:  What's next for Catalogic and DPX?

Barth:  We continue to update both our DPX and CloudCasa solutions, based on customer feedback and industry trends and needs.  Be on the lookout for additional updates later this year as we continue to provide more proactive ransomware protection capabilities to our customers. 

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Ken Barth is Catalogic's Chief Executive Officer.  Ken has over 20 years of management leadership experience in the technology industry. The Founder of TekTools, Inc, he served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of the Company from November 1997 until January 2010. During his tenure, the company developed and brought to market the KAWA and Profiler products. KAWA, a Java Integrated Development Environment, garnered more than 50,000 users worldwide before the product and the development team was acquired by the Allaire Corp. (NASDAQ: ALLR) in November of 2000. Profiler, an IT Infrastructure Monitoring and Reporting suite, grew to well over 1,000 customers prior to its acquisition by Solarwinds in January 2010. Prior to that, from 1993 to 1997 he was a founding shareholder and helped to build Micromuse, Inc from a U.S. startup to a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: MUSE). Ken is a graduate from the University of North Texas and actively supports a number of education focused organizations in the not for profit community.