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Remote Backup Securely Moves Your Data Where You Need it, When You Need it

By: Mike Colesante

Not long ago, the thought of sending private and critical data across the Internet was radical and dangerous. In addition, leaving that data in the hands of a third party was unthinkable.

Now, the most logical choice for a small to mid-sized business is to outsource data protection to managed backup or remote backup, service providers. They are companies whose mission is to make sure your data is protected, safe off-site and restorable when you need it and where you need it.

The savings from outsourcing and Internet services are being realized today

Many organizations outsource some portion of their IT today. Whether it is their email or CRM package, they understand when used properly, the Internet is a safe and secure way to transfer and use data.

Remote backup has been around for many years. Until recently, it only protected small amounts of priceless data. Simply put, it was expensive. Flash forward 10 years, and remote backup has hit the main stream for both the enterprise and the small medium business market.

Encryption solved the initial hurdle of data privacy many years ago. Organizations recognize that with the right technology, transmitting data over the Internet is secure.

The next big hurdle to mass adoption was price. Just a few years ago, remote backup solutions were for large companies with big budgets. High prices were a function of high costs.

The reduction in the price of bandwidth means every business has a broadband connection to the Internet. Since remote backup service providers use a huge amount of bandwidth, their costs go down as bandwidth prices decline, and they pass the savings on to their clients.

Another factor contributing to the decline in remote backup service prices is a reduction in data storage costs for Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network Area Storage systems (NAS). Data storage has never been more economical.

Add to that the fact that backup and monitoring technologies have made network operations centers much more automated. This automation allows backup service providers to be more efficient and keep labor cost down.

Further, a professional remote backup service provider will help you segment your data by its value to your organization. Some business data must be available immediately while other data can be retrieved after a few days. Treating each class differently reduces the overall cost of your data protection plan.

These factors, combined with the true cost of a severe data loss event, have created the perfect time for remote data protection. The consequences of server downtime can be fatal in today's "Information Age."

In fact, according to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, "93 percent of all companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year."

A remote backup service provides better protection while reducing your cost. With remote backup, you eliminate the labor associated with administration of a tape-based system, agents and software costs and the fees for off-site transportation and tape storage.

The largest cost savings comes when it is time to do a restore. Many studies indicate tape restores work less than 30 percent of the time.

A study conducted by Storage Magazine reported that of the businesses that tested tape restores, 50 percent found their backups fail to recover. The failure rate may increase if your "off-site location" is an employee's car or house.

In order to be effective, a tape-based solution must employ a bonded off-site service that stores your media at a climate-controlled facility.

The real cost of tape is the high cost of your loss of productivity when you have to wait four to twenty four hours for tape to arrive before you can even begin the restore process.

That is, if you can even get the tape...

A CTO in Houston expressed his frustration with tapes in the following story:

I heard the hurricane warning like everyone else. I knew I was prepared since we did disaster recovery drills quarterly. I just activated our plan by calling my warm data center site to activate my DR plan. Then, I called Iron Mountain to have my tapes delivered to me. They were closed due to the hurricane warning - strike one.

Thinking quickly, I forced a manual backup of all my data using my tape system. It felt like it took forever, but it was really only about 8 hours.

Incidentally, my family left town when the first warning was issued so they were on their way to safety.

My backups finished, so with my newly made backup set in hand I called FedEx. I positively absolutely needed my tapes delivered overnight to my "warm" data center located in Arizona. FedEx and all other common carriers were closed due to the hurricane warning - strike two.

Then, I grabbed the tapes, jumped in my car and headed out to meet my family in Dallas. As it turns out, so did a million other Houstonians, so I was stuck on the freeway with tapes in hand - strike 3.

The storm actually turned away from Houston so I dodged a bullet. I was spending money and thought I had all my bases covered. It took the threat of a real natural disaster for me to find out how wrong I was.

Another company was caught off guard when their office was padlocked after a hurricane. Power was out and the office building management locked the door. It took five days to get access to the building and 10 days to restore power. This was in a "Class A" office building.

Caution, if you need to get backup tapes or servers out of your building, plan and communicate directly with the property manager before a disaster strikes.

With remote backup services, your data is instantly transmitted a safe distance away and is always available for immediate restore.

Your data, where you need it.

With the right remote backup provider, the configurations for replication are limitless. Some remote backup service providers can replicate your data to your disaster recovery location. This reduces recovery time from "hours and days" to "minutes and hours."

Understand your needs and the services available.

Thousands of remote backup providers exist. Each promises great service, data protection and restore capabilities. The reality is, only about five companies supply the technology that powers the business class remote backup service providers. Most of the providers resell the service of other providers, while some actually license the technology and use their own operations team and data storage systems.

The five companies divide into software-only companies Asigra and Avamar (now owned by EMC) and service providers like i365, a Seagate company (formerly Evault), Iron Mountain Digital (formerly LiveVault). While many other backup software companies exist, these are the most respected for the enterprise environments.

When selecting a remote backup service provider, make sure you work with a professional firm that will take the time to understand your recovery needs. Backup is a means to and end. If the recovery doesn't meet your business needs, backup is a waste of money at any price.

Article Source: http://impactdns.com

Mike Colesante is president of Terian Solutions, a Houston-based company specializing in business continuity, enterprise backup and recovery services. For more information about this article or remote data backup services go to www.teriansolutions.com. You can reach Mike Colesante dirtectly at 713-482-3525.

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