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Traditionally an automated offsite backup solution has only been available to large corporate companies with big budgets, I imagine nearly all small-to-medium business owners have investigated “high availability” computing solutions and have found they will never be able to afford it. As a result business owners have done nothing, leaving their business extremely exposed to the consequences of data loss, but with the increase of internet performance (broadband), online backup services have become affordable and the most sensible solution for smaller business owners. You can now backup all your business data (Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft SBS, Novel, Lotus, File Data, in-fact everything) for less than $100 per month.
It’s easy to get up and running, the first thing you need to do is visit Google and search for “offsite backup” you will find thousands of companies offering their services. You are going to pay a monthly fee for a company to look after your businesses most important asset so before you buy, call the companies in question and investigate them. Remember, the cheapest will not be the best, and for the small amount you will save, this is not something where you should cut corners.
There are a lot of companies jumping on the “online backup bandwagon” so please make sure your company offers the following functionality:-
In-file Delta or Delta Blocking – this means if you change a small proportion of a large file only the changes are backed up, this means your backup will be quicker and the storage space required is much less.
Flexible Retention Period – this lets you determine how long you wish to keep old data or older file versions for. This functionality is particular good if your industry is bound by legislation which dictates how long files must be stored.
Application Support – Make sure the software supports all major applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft SBS, Novel and Lotus for example.
Infrastructure – The second most important feature of any offsite backup company is its storage infrastructure. Make sure there is no single point of failure. For example insist that there are multiple clustered servers connected to a high end SAN storage infrastructure. Make sure this whole system is duplicated and replicated to a separate site, preferably in a separate country which will ensure your data will be safe and available for restore even if a whole data centre goes offline.
Security – This is the most important element of any online backup solution. Your data must be encrypted to the highest levels prior to transmitting, and it should remain in the same highly encrypted state whilst it is stored. Only you or the holder of the encryption key should be able to access your data.
Automation – I like to call it set and forget. Once you have set up your backup schedule, let the software do its job. You will never have to worry about backing up your data again.
By now I hope you a well equipped to consider online backup as an cost effective way of protecting your business, even if you backup using traditional methods please read below the advantages of online backup.
- Offsite backup solutions automatically backup your data and requires zero human intervention.
- Your mission critical data is stored at secure, remote and replicated locations, so regardless of disaster; your data will always be available for restore.
- Totally flexible, there is no need to buy equipment every 2 years or upgrade, there is no storage limitation and you can upgrade at any time.
- Traditional backup media such as CD’s, DVD’s or tape are subject to damage, data corruptions drives and human error, no such instance exists with an offsite backup solution.
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