Cobalt Iron
Industry-Leading Data Protection Technology

COVID-19 impelled businesses to adapt to a new normal: working from home. That’s why many companies are accelerating their digital transformation efforts. However, because of this rapid shift toward the digital realm, it has become challenging to safeguard mission-critical data. Needless to say, the reputational, operational, legal, and compliance implications could be huge if cyberthreats are neglected. So the onus is still on backup administrators— even if they are working from home—to protect data from cybercriminals and ensure effective deployment, operation, and administration of backup systems.

Enter Cobalt Iron Compass®, a global leader in SaaS-based enterprise data protection software.

“Compass is an industry-leading backup platform that uses AI/ML and analytics to eliminate operational complexity for enterprises that manage terabytes to petabytes of backup data,” says Andy Hurt, chief marketing officer, Cobalt Iron. “Also, our customers don’t need any specific or unique skills to manage Compass because they can do it through a userfriendly, browser-based interface.”

Compass analyzes and optimizes operational metadata to automate up to 90% of backup operations and infrastructure management tasks. Because Compass runs nearautonomously, there are no direct login credentials to the backup landscape, reducing the chances of password breaches or bad actors taking over. Compass also maintains software currency across the entire backup infrastructure, ensuring that the latest version of Compass software, security patches, OS, and BIOS are always running. “We continually deliver software updates to the Compass platform every three weeks to give users the latest features and functionalities. This never-ending update cycle delivers massive operational benefits and eliminates any headaches associated with upgrading backup infrastructure and paying for the most recent software release,” states Hurt.

Further, the Compass Commander user interface offers a simple, centralized workspace for all operational management and reporting. From control to visibility, operators have access to all activities through Commander without needing complex training or technology skills.

Cobalt Iron understands that data backup security cannot be an afterthought or an add-on, so the company’s Cyber Shield™ cybersecurity technology is native to Compass. Security is at the heart of the Cyber Shield architecture. With Cyber Shield built into every Compass deployment, all workloads are hermetically sealed and not susceptible to the typical cybersecurity points of failure.

“Cyber Shield is based on the concept of containment by design, meaning humans and other corporate networks cannot access the backup environment,” adds Hurt. Additionally, its powerful analytics engine simplifies enterprise data protection by analyzing metadata. Enriched metadata helps improve a company’s overall cybersecurity. It dramatically reduces the amount of data that must be analyzed to identify the malicious actor.

our customers don’t need any specific or unique skills to manage Compass because they can do it through a userfriendly, browser-based interface

Cobalt Iron’s analytics engine today runs in over 22 global data centers to constantly analyze and optimize the metadata extracted from clients’ backup environments. For example, while analyzing the metadata, Cobalt Iron identified that one of its client’s servers was about to melt down after a coolant shutdown. The software automatically raised a ticket and quickly escalated it to the client’s support team, resulting in the prevention of a catastrophic failure. In another instance, Compass helped a renowned global customer tackle a cyberattack. Using Cyber Shield, the client gathered insights regarding the entry point of the attack, its impact, and the extent of the compromise. They also successfully recovered the data without paying a penny to the cybercriminals.

“We are passionate about developing software, tools, and functionalities to eliminate cyberthreats for our clients. Our solution allows them to focus on what they do best — run their business,” concludes Hurt.