The Latest Barracuda News
Product and Solution Information, Press Releases, Announcements

New Barracuda Beer Keg Manager Delivers Comprehensive Mobile Beer Management for IT Managers

April 1, 2015 – Campbell, Calif. – Barracuda Networks Inc. (NYSE: CUDA) today launched the new Barracuda Beer Keg Manager, a revolutionary tool designed to simplify the IT Lifestyle. The Barracuda Beer Manager allows organizations to securely manage beer and cider consumption across an organization, from anywhere and from any device. For additional details and to sign up for a free trial, visit http://cuda.co/bkm.

“Barracuda has a rich history as a leader in technology development for managing and securing users, applications and data for mid-sized businesses,” said Marc Wolfe, VP Marketing at Barracuda. “The Barracuda Beer Keg Manager is a natural extension of that technology leadership to our IT customers – not only simplifying IT, but simplifying the IT lifestyle as well.”

“Barracuda continues to raise the bar on innovation with the new Barracuda Beer Keg Manager,” said Bob Smith at ABC IT Services. “The company’s taken 11 years of its technology innovation for IT – from securing access, to enforcing policies, to mobile device management, to archiving and logging – and created something truly unique. The Barracuda Beer Keg Manager is a game-changer for IT Admins everywhere.”

The Barracuda Beer Keg Manager layers standard tap towers with flow meters, solenoid valves and LEDs, which can measure the amounts of beer used for each keg, as well as turn them on and off individually. Each device is controlled by a Raspberry Pi micro-controller, with an Arduino micro-controller daughter board to measure beer flow and six relays to control the valves. Two digital thermometers are included to monitor both room and keg temperatures. Additional highlights include:

• Dashboard –graphical web interface – available at http://www.beerontap.com – to view the current selection of beers, as well as a real-time progress meter on how much supply is left in the keg.
• Simplified fulfillment –place new orders, or request refills and samples from a database of more than 6000 beers.
• Monitoring and alerts –review past orders and ratings to analyze most and least popular selections, and receive alerts when supply is running low.
• Strong policy enforcement –configure and enforce policies based on user or groups (e.g., support staff can access high octane brews, while sales can enjoy only ciders, or employees of the month can access premium brews, and so forth).
• Secure access –manage levels of access with badge reader controls, including sophisticated time allotment at each keg giving employees time to pour one beer at a time, as well as override mechanisms as needed for company events.
• Geographical deployment –support the local Farm-to-Table movement by enabling access management based on geography (e.g., Michigan craft beers in Ann Arbor or California craft beers in Campbell, etc.)
• Energize Updates –stay informed with the most current and upcoming availability with Energize Updates subscriptions.

“Today’s workforce relies on mobile devices and beer,” continued Wolfe. “Being able to leverage the award-winning technologies we spent the past decade building into our security and storage product portfolio really makes the Barracuda Beer Keg Manager a powerful tool for IT managers. Like most Barracuda products, the Barracuda Beer Keg Manager is available in appliance, virtual appliance and cloud deployment options. We are exploring additional cloud deployment options via a partnership with Google or AWS, as they are the only ones we could think of who could possibly deliver beer on tap to anyone anytime in real time. The Barracuda Beer Keg Manager furthers our mission to help simplify IT – and the IT Lifestyle – for our customers worldwide.”

“I don't know how we could be an effective business without the Barracuda Beer Keg Manager available to our staff,” said Steve Jones, IT Director at XYZ Auto. "Prior to implementing this Barracuda solution, we had no way to manage beer consumption, which was a drain on productivity and staff. Now we just log in to the Barracuda Beer Keg Manager, and can manage everything from placing orders, to generating reports to see who’s drinking what, to enforcing policies that ensure certain special stashes are reserved for those eligible. It’s a robust solution that truly is that simple to use.”