Remote Backup- Don't be a Statistic. Get your precious company data offsite.
October, 2009
What is your information worth? Hundreds of dollars? Thousands or perhaps millions of dollars? The first rule of computing is "back up, back up, back up!" Unfortunately, this is also the most ignored rule. A missed backup can prove catastrophic; a delayed or missed retrieval can have a financial impact on your organization; and lost data can cost you your biggest client. A few months back USA Today wrote "73% of small businesses without a comprehensive proven Disaster Recovery plan are no longer in business within 12 months of the need to enact such a plan." There is no hotter topic right now in the IT field than Remote Backup.
Why do you need remote data backup? Copying data to CDs/DVDs or tapes that are left beside the computer only ensures that your data will be destroyed in the same disaster that destroys your hardware. Fires usually destroy backup media that are left onsite, and in many cases the affected premises are off-limits to everyone for many days after a fire or other disaster. Proper backups by the TRG tested products are done automatically, and securely encrypted, are available to restore at any time, and are taken offsite - on the schedule that YOU set.
Remote Backup provides secure, offsite backup and data restoration. With hundreds of providers claiming their remote backup service is the perfect match for your critical business files, we at TRG did extensive testing of server appliances and dozens of remote backup services as a result, we have partnered with a few trusted providers such as Barracuda Backup, Symantec System Recovery and 3X.
Our Assumption is that all remote backup services provide these functions.
- Comprehensive, automatic backup scheduling for set it and forget it
- File selection filters so you can easily select only your most important and crucial files
- Encryption and compression for fast, totally secure backups
- E-mail notification so you know immediately if there is any trouble with the backup process(es)
- Incremental backups reducing backup times & bandwidth requirements up to 99%
The Contenders
Barracuda backup: This product is both appliance and service and is geared for servers primarily. The appliance is a physical rack mount device that is part of your network for backup purposes only. The appliance has a number of hard drives for the backup data to reside before the data is sent via the Internet offsite. As part on the configuration process you set Barracuda Backup to backup files and folders that you assign. The data is backed up locally to the hard drives first for quick restores and then offsite to Barracuda Networks' east coast and west coast Tier 1 data centers.
Pros:
- Online Storage is very cheap at $.50/GB with plans starting at 100GB a month, $50/month
- Data is backed up to both east and west coast data centers
- Billed quarterly as a service from TRG
- Local quick restore option for deleted files
- Retention policy for how much data to be saved before rewrites
- Meets Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)
Cons:
- Appliance sizing is critical for future expansion
- Does not take a full system "Image" of your entire computer's hard drives(s) without additional licensing purchase
Symantec System Recovery: This product is simply a piece of software with a license attached. It is geared for servers and desktops. Two key differences that set this product apart from others are Server "Images" and the ability to restore to dissimilar hardware. Images are a complete copy of the hard drive(s) the software sees within Windows including operating system and system configuration. This allows for faster restore of the entire server, as compared to tape or even older hard drive based restores.
Pros:
- Image entire server for 1 step full server restores, even to different hardware also known as bare metal
- Local quick restore option in minutes as opposed to hours or even days
- Restore options for individual files/folders within Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and SQL
- Get rid of slow, expensive, labor intensive and unreliable tape backup
Cons:
- Need to own or buy some kind of mass storage device. Typically Network Attached Storage (NAS)
- The ability to send your data offsite is included within the product. However you need to purchase FTP space from TRG or similar
3X: This product is a small program installed on your laptop. This is a desktop/laptop only product in most cases. If you have a mobile workforce this solution will backup all files placed within a defined folder automatically the next time a user has an Internet connection.
Pros:
- Inexpensive portable solution for mobile workforce
- Simple, small, and easy to use client
- More tweakable than Backup Exec. You can even do global file extension exclusions
Cons:
- Not cost effective for large data requirements
- If you are not online at the scheduled backup time, you will have to remember to do a manual backup
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Updated October 1, 2009