Clumio Unveils Data Protection Service for Long-Term Retention and Compliance of AWS Native Services

Clumio, innovators of authentic SaaS for enterprise backup, today announced data protection for Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) workloads, eliminating cost, risk and compliance-related barriers to cloud adoption -- specifically, the migration of mission critical apps to the cloud. Clumio’s service, the first data protection service for long-term retention of AWS native services, also orchestrates operational recovery snapshots for free. The company continues to advance SaaS backup for the all cloud enterprise, delivering a seamless public cloud backup solution and enabling companies to get to the cloud faster.

Today’s data protection landscape presents several challenges for enterprises. On-premises backup tools are complex, costly and don’t “translate” to the cloud; these on-premises solutions only provide snapshot data protection, meaning data backup and compliance are not addressed. Meanwhile, cloud backups that use snapshots alone for file recovery and data retention have inherent cost, compliance and ransomware risks. These risks severely limit companies attempting to move mission critical databases to the public cloud. Clumio’s enterprise backup as a service consolidates operational recovery, backup and compliance requirements – all within a predictable cost model. Clumio includes snapshot orchestration for free, air-gap snapshot protection and long-term retention, translating to secure and compliant data protection at a substantially lower cost. This announcement for AWS comes after Clumio’s recent addition of Microsoft 365 to its enterprise backup as a service -- the first enterprise data protection service in the market to protect private cloud, public cloud and SaaS on a single platform. Clumio’s AWS and Microsoft 365 data protection “firsts” empower enterprises to map to an “all cloud” model efficiently and effectively, expediting innovation in the process.

“Enterprises are telling us that they spend 40 percent of their total storage budget on snapshots -- and for that they don’t even get complete data protection or compliance,” said Poojan Kumar, CEO and co-founder, Clumio. “With Clumio, companies shave up to 50 percent off their snapshot spend and can stop paying competitors for snapshot orchestration altogether when they use the free tier in Clumio. Clumio’s air-gap data protection, unified policy management and seamless cloud backups -- all with a predictable cost model -- allow companies to move their business critical apps to the cloud without worry.”

“At FrogSlayer, we must think about how to address operational recovery, data recovery, and compliance for our enterprise clients,” said Brian Cahill, technology director at FrogSlayer. “Clumio seamlessly handles operational recovery while significantly reducing our snapshot costs. Even better, I don’t have to worry about snapshot limitations, or develop scripts and retention algorithms because Clumio handles all of this. We now have line of sight to significantly reduce our TCO for long-term data retention since it is an integral part of the Clumio service.”

"Moving to AWS introduces new complexities for compliance, long-term data retention, and data security," said Joseph Alcorn, manager of infrastructure services and architecture, Point Loma Nazarene University. "Addressing these complexities are 'musts' for our mission-critical database applications, and our legacy, on-prem approach simply did not scale to the cloud. As a single service that protects EBS and RDS for operational recovery, data recovery, and long- term retention, Clumio will dramatically reduce our business risk and costs as we accelerate to the cloud." 

“Organizations migrating their mission critical databases to the cloud are in a quandary when it comes to data protection options. Snapshot-only protection strategies are costly, risky and can be non-compliant,” said Steve McDowell, senior analyst, Moor Insights and Strategy. “Clumio’s secure SaaS backup for AWS native services outsmarts snapshot managers by delivering the same functionality for free, allowing Clumio to focus its innovative tiered pricing model on what enterprises value more - lower TCO for long-term retention and compliance for their data in the cloud.”

Clumio’s AWS data protection service includes the following capabilities:

* Operational Recovery: Point-in-time recovery, in-account snapshots and free snapshot orchestration for EBS and RDS workloads

* Data Recovery: Simple restores, granular record retrieval and air-gap snapshots

* Compliance: Long-term retention, record-level retrieval and deletion, export for legal hold/eDiscovery and data store

 

Clumio for Amazon EBS became available in November 2019. Clumio for Amazon RDS will be available on June 11, 2020.

Five Apps Working with NPCI to Ease Digital Payments Woes

Though our government has announced relaxations in the lockdown. Many of us  are avoiding crowded areas like  shops,parks and  neighbourhood stores to maintain social distancing in this critical scenario. 

This is where a lot of companies are working to ease digital payments.The  National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) is  urging Indian citizens to use digital payments to reduce social contact and reduce the chance of transmission of novel Coronavirus.NPCI and the State Governments are ensuring that more and more vendors of essential services are on the digital platforms. Below are 5 companies who are working with NPCI to ease the digital payments for the people:

Xpay 

Blockchain-based platform XPay. Life offers an array of digital payment services, including touch screen ATP kiosk, web, mobile app, POS device and others. The platform caters to both B2B as well as B2C segment. The company providing the highest level of transparency during transactions. It has partnered with leading banks to further expand its reach. XPay.Life has completed 1 Lakh transactions worth INR 5 Cr, since its beta version launch in 2019. In the last ten months, it also claims to have achieved 234% growth via web and mobile app. People can pay for their Electricity, Mobile recharges, DTH, Broadband, LPG, Loan EMI, etc. through the Xpay Life App and web version. Majorly serving the rural India for easing Their payment woes, the platform has 253 billers across India with a wider reach to 50000+ pin codes in Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities across India.

CoinTab

Cointab is a mobile app which enables you to manage your money with ease - add bank accounts from 90+ banks and easily check account balance, transfer money to friends & family in real-time and request money from them.You can pay your credit card bills in real-time, do recharge of your mobile/dth, and pay all of your utility bills from any of your bank accounts.You can easily view your Employee Provident Fund (EPF) data, balance, passbook.Its a simple and convenient way of banking  

Cred

CRED is a members-only club that rewards individuals for their timely credit card bill payments by providing them with exclusive offers and access to premium experiences. It is a platform that allows credit card users to manage multiple cards along with an analysis of their credit score. Members with a high Experian or CRIF score are eligible for exclusive rewards upon payment of their credit card bills through the app. Among many of the features in the app are CRED's credit card spend tracking and management feature which provided the user with analysis of spend tracking and efficiency of usage of the card.

Pay Nearby

Pay Nearby Technologies, a FinTech company, is offering financial/non-financial services to the underbanked and unbanked segment is on a mission to launch its own network of Micro ATMs.It operates on a B2B2C model, where they partner with neighbourhood retail stores who can offer Assisted Digital Financial Services like Aadhaar ATM, SMS Payment, Khata Service, Utility Payment, Prepaid Cards, Mutual Funds & Insurance, Money Transfer, Hyperlocal Services and payment services like Bharat QR and UPI using the PayNearby App.The company had recently  tied up with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Equitas Small Finance Bank for this initiative.

Udaan

Udaan was launched in 2016 by former Flipkart senior executives Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta, and Amod Malviya, Udaan connects small or medium-sized businesses (SMBs), manufacturers, wholesalers, traders, and retailers to sell goods and services to each other.The company also offers other services such as credit financing and logistics to connect manufacturers with retailers.Udaan is joining the brigade of UPI payments app with its QR-code based digital payments for retail outlets, restaurants and merchants.

Govt Approves Big Agricultural Reforms that’ll Help Farmers Trade Freely in India

The Narendra Modi government Wednesday approved amendments to the Essential Commodities Act and brought an ordinance that will allow farmers to sell their crop to anyone, a move that is expected to go a long way in helping Indian farmers and transforming the agriculture sector.The decisions are part of the Modi government’s Rs 20 lakh crore lockdown relief package, which was announced in multiple parts last month.The changes to the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, will “deregulate” various agricultural commodities like cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from stock limits, except in case of natural calamities like famine. 

In context to the same,  Mr. Amith Agarwal,Co-Founder & CEO, AgriBazaar shares, " I wish to congratulate the Indian government, especially our Hon’ble Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and Minister of Rural Development Shri Narendra Singh Tomarji for this historic decision. The amendment to the Essential Commodities Act marks the beginning of a new chapter in India's agriculture history. The removal of inter-state agri-trade barriers will help farmers, especially, small farm owners and FPN's to sell their produce at an all India level with better and transparent price discovery mechanism. The measure will improve the ease of doing business for the agri-sector and foster greater transparency, efficiency and trust across the value chain. Additionally, this will serve our goals of doubling farmers' income by 2022 as well as the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan.

He further added that as an industry stakeholder, I am excited by the opportunities brought about by this move. We believe our full-stack agritech e-mandi platform AgriBazaar will empower small farmers and FPN's to connect with buyers across India in a fast, fair and futuristic manner."

Cactus Communications Launches an Integrated Ecosystem of Tools to Simplify the Life of Researchers Amid Covid-19

Cactus Communications, a technology company accelerating scientific advancement, today announced the launch of R (researcher.life), an extensive integrated ecosystem of tools and support for academic researchers. 

The ecosystem currently offers six tools and platforms, all designed to address a specific need or issue that researchers face. R Pubsure is an AI-powered platform that evaluates the submission readiness of research manuscripts and recommends suitable journals. R Discovery (beta) brings together the power of AI and the researcher community to help researchers conduct literature search faster and more intelligently. R Upskill is a learning platform with the largest collection of curated courses and handbooks for researchers. R Voice (beta) is a community platform that allows researchers to connect with other researchers over wide-ranging topics. An upcoming concept, R Fund, will allow researchers to find funding for their research in a timely manner.

In April this year, CACTUS had launched R Concept, a comprehensive AI-powered, expert-curated platform on research, insights, commentary, and expert recommendations related to COVID-19. This offering is available in the R ecosystem.

Abhishek Goel, Co-founder and CEO of CACTUS, spoke on the motivation behind building this ecosystem: “Modern researchers have to fight to find time in the lab. Too much time is spent on writing, formatting, submitting, reviewing, discovery, planning lectures, and applying for grants—activities that take up valuable time of the very people who could be spending that time in the lab, solving real world problems. We wanted to simplify things for researchers, a need that’s more pressing now than it has ever been.” 

The ecosystem leverages the company’s AI, concept extraction, and deep learning capabilities. Earlier this year, the company had acquired UNSILO, a Demark-based AI startup, to enhance its repertoire of tech solutions. 

The ecosystem will give members access to multiple tools and solutions seamlessly and effortlessly. PubSURE, which was earlier a standalone solution offered by CACTUS, has now been made available in the R ecosystem. Researchers who have signed up with PubSURE can now access the entire suite of R solutions and much more in terms of services, information, and connections.

CACTUS is currently inviting researchers to explore the R platform and ecosystem of tools and share their feedback. 

Researchers can sign up at researcher.life/ to access the ecosystem.

Dr. Majeed Foundation Contributes ₹2 Crores Towards Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority to combat COVID-19

Dr. Majeed Foundation, a non-profit institution founded by Dr. Muhammed Majeed, Founder and Chairman of Sami-Sabinsa Group, today contributed ₹2 crores to Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority, to help combat the widespread outbreak of COVID-19.

Dr. Muhammed Majeed, Founder and Chairman of Sami-Sabinsa Group and Ms. Neeraja Shetty, CEO and Director, Sami Labs Ltd, met with the Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, Dr. Ashwathnarayan C N and handed over the cheque to him.

As part of the efforts by Dr. Majeed Foundation to support people in distress, the foundation has ramped up its community outreach programs to reach out to the poor and vulnerable communities. Especially to those who have been most affected by the pandemic in Bengaluru and Hyderabad and provided them with essential food items, protective equipment, hand sanitizers and health supplements.

Recently in Chokkasandra, Peenya, Bengaluru, Dr. Majeed Foundation distributed a total of 2,000 food kits - each food kit containing essential grocery items with 5 kgs of rice, 1 kg toor dal, 1 kg atta, 1 kg sugar, 1 kg salt, I ltr oil, one bath soap and a reusable face mask.

In Hyderabad, Dr. Majeed Foundation distributed a total of 1600 food kits to the residents of Turkapally village, an old age home, and various slum-dwelling units.

Dr. Muhammed Majeed, Founder and Chairman of Sami-Sabinsa Group said, “We have always believed in supporting the less fortunate while also giving back to the society and the nation. Today, as Covid-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented challenge for the state of Karnataka, the contribution of ₹2 crores towards Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority is a step towards helping combat the virus.”

Columbia Pacific Communities Hosts Virtual Session on Climate Change on World Environment Day

The World Environment Day is seen as an opportunity to be more aware about the various environmental issues surrounding us. With the world under lockdown due to a pandemic, it becomes increasingly important to understand the responsibilities that each one of us has towards protecting our environment and addressing climate change. To address the seriousness of the situation and encourage one and all to be cognizant towards the environment, Columbia Pacific Communities, India’s largest senior living community operators, is hosting a special edition of #TheLivingRoom with Sunil Dahiya, an Analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and an ex-campaigner with Greenpeace India. Through an FB Live session, Dahiya will elaborate on climate change and highlight how it is every individual's responsibility to build a greener earth and reduce carbon footprint.

The Living Room is a series of virtual talk shows and sessions with luminaries and experts hosted through the live video streaming feature of Facebook, FB Live, to positively engage senior citizens during such stressful times.

Be part of the insightful session to know your role in helping the environment heal and restore its beauty at #TheLivingRoom session live-streaming on Friday, 5th June at 5:00 PM on the official Facebook page of Columbia Pacific Communities. 

SnapOrder: Kirana Store App from SnapBizz Witnesses Record Downloads

The SnapOrder mobile app enables Kirana stores of all sizes to go online with their supplies instantly for their customers. SnapOrder has witnessed 6x growth in downloads in the month of April alone. The company had recently released several updates to the app that aids Kirana stores solve the many challenges faced during a Lockdown.

One of the highlights of the app is that consumers can use it to directly view available stocks and place orders with the Kirana stores, either for pick-up or for home delivery, enabling the Kirana store to manage demand efficiently and prevent over-crowding at the stores to make sure social distancing is maintained during the current crisis. Also, with over 70% of SnapOrder stores doing home delivery for no additional cost, this app has become a prominent player in the affordable e-commerce segment beating out most delivery apps that charge a significant amount for their service.

With the country being under lockdown for the past two months, the entire nation of 1.3 billion is largely relying on Kirana stores for their essentials – foods, beverages, personal and household care products. It is very rare for any industry sector to experience such a surge and one can see a new normal emerging in terms of unexpected trends and changing consumer behaviour due to this new-found humble relationship between the local Kirana store and the customers who live around them.

Prem Kumar, Founder & CEO, SnapBizz adds “The SnapOrder app has been exclusively designed to fulfil the entire Kirana store value chain. With the sudden lockdown the app provides to be a boon for not only the retailer who could easily manage his inventory and its movement but more so for the end consumer who could get a bird’s eye view into the neighbourhood Kirana store with the app. Not only that but it helped the customer order their essentials from the comfort of their homes and pick it up or have it delivered in a contact less manner amidst Covid19.”

He further adds, “The latest version of the app is armed with a host of benefits to make it more convenient for the user. According to a recent study report, ease of use was cited as the number one reason for the popularity of the SnapOrder app.”

The SnapOrder app offers a variety of solutions that sets it apart from other delivery apps:

* Go online in just 30 min: SnapOrder mobile app has been developed to quickly get the Kirana stores online in just 30 minutes. The app comes preloaded with 2000 SKUs/products which enables the store owner to quickly go online.

* Exclusive and customised app for the retailer: This app enables the Kirana store owner to have a direct one-to-one connect with the customers. It is designed as an exclusive platform for the store to connect with consumers, unlike other apps where there are various stores for the customer to choose from, increasing competition and decreasing visibility. When the customer opens this app, he straightaway gets the view of the available SKUs in that particular Kirana store.

* The only grocery-specific app in the market: SnapOrder mobile app is the only app in the market that is developed specifically for Kirana stores across India.

Kirana stores have won many new customers and many of these new customers would continue to purchase from them – even post lockdown. The customers are now becoming more aware of the services that Kirana store owners offer such as; Credit, home-delivery, hyper-local apps, hyper-local merchandise etc. SnapOrder is one of the solutions SnapBizz offering to ease the process during this challenging time.