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[O168]Online Data Backup Reviews

by Lee Morrell, Lee

Online backup also known as offsite backup or remote backup is a data protection service that enables your company to restore data regardless of disaster. Your business will have important data, which you cannot afford to lose stored on PC's, laptops or Servers. This can be file data such as word, excel documents or application data such as mail, financial or customer management data. If your company cannot survive without this data then you need an online data backup service. It will automatically carry out the complicated function of backing up your data to a remote storage environment whilst offering a simple method of management.

The concept of offsite or online backup is simple; you data residing on your server which you need to protect. The easiest and most secure way of doing this is to ensure your backup is move to a location as far away as possible from your offices. This will ensure, regardless of disaster, fire, flood, structural damage you can rest assured you will never lose any of your important data.

The backup process is automatically carried out when your business is closed, i.e. every night, but this can be controlled by you, you can backup every hour if required. All companies must make an initial full backup then thereafter will make nightly incremental backups. An incremental backup will only backup the changes made within your days trading. This is a great way of cutting down your backup windows and also offers multiple versions of your backup.

The concept of online backup is simple and the offerings from most companies are pretty much the same, so why can the monthly charges vary so much between suppliers? Easy answer, its all about software functionality and hardware infrastructure, for example, I could setup a company right now that offers remote backup solutions. I could buy a software license for a half decent backup product and build a cheap server and run it from my home. Not the best way to treat your company's most important asset.

Backup Software ? should be feature rich, offering volume shadow copy, in-file delta, one click restore processes as standard. All agents to backup all major applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL , Lotus, Oracle, MySQL should be included as standard. Support for all major operating system should also be included. Finally and the most important element to any online backup solution is security. Your data must be encrypted to levels used by the military prior to being transmitted via the internet.

Hardware Infrastructure ? should be totally resilient to failure, for example, the environment you are sending your data to must consist of many servers and many storage environments, so if one part of the system failed other parts will automatically pick up the work load. This infrastructure should also be replicated to a data storage facility preferably in a different country; all ensuring loss of your data is an impossibility.

In summary, companies who charge ?10 per month will probably have a server in their home; companies who charge ?50 per month will probably have ?500,000 of hardware located throughout Europe.

Type of data

Relevance of data

Size of data

Various Media Backup Options

In order to choose wisely, one needs to firmly grasp the essentials of currently available common storage media. Basically, storage media can be classified into volatile and non-volatile media. Volatile media are those which depend on electricity ? their functional life and ability depend on available power. Volatile storage media such as hard drives lose their electromagnetism consequently losing data. On the other hand, non-volatile media such as CD-R are very expensive and not frequently used as backup devices. These devices have the ability to retain or save data for a short time when the power connections are shut off. Non-volatile storage media allow users to work on data even when there is no power.

Most companies and personal users buy and use magnetic volatile storage media. Thus, they run the risk of data loss. The different types of magnetic storage media available are:

Floppy disks and Zip disks usually possess a shelf life of 10 years. But, these magnetic storage media depend on power and start losing their magnetic coating after five years. This means that they can only be used as effective backups for a finite period of three or five years. Floppy and zip disks require manual maintenance as they do not have any inlaid maintenance systems. The disks do not automatically verify data files and usually do not have any security mechanism. Thus, data stored on these disks is open to hacking and theft.

Hard disks boast of a working life of usually three or five years. Hard drives are typically used to archive data in industries. They require careful maintenance and handling. A popular derivation of the hard drive is the Jaz drive which allows reading and copying of the stored data using another hard drive. In short, the Jaz drive is a removable magnetic hard disk which has an inlaid security alarm system. The system provides for user convenience and data security. It reduces the risk of data corruption, in the sense that it allows the user to read and save the data on another drive. But Jaz drives are considered unreliable storage backup as they have a functional life of less than five years.

Tapes can be described as high-maintenance volatile storage media equipment. They need careful and controlled environment exposure i.e., tape drives are rendered useless when exposed to undue heat, light and humidity. In addition, the magnetic coating of the tape wears thin if used in excess. In other words, tape drives, though portable, cannot be used all the time as effective data backups. They need to be stored in a magnetically shielded environment such as a steel cabinet.

CD-ROM and DVD discs are being described as optical laser storage media. They have the ability to save, read and copy even minute data. Generally, CD-ROMs are non-volatile media and, thus, have a low risk of data loss. They are basically used to store data and make it available whenever needed. CD-ROMs are affordable and easily available. In contrast, DVD writers are not standardised, available and cheap to be considered for routine data storage functions. For data storage purposes, CD-ROMs can be either write-only or read-write, though longer term storage is normally done on write-only discs. These discs, usually labelled CD-R, are available in two types: green and gold. Artificial tests indicate that the green CDs have a storage life of 75 years and the gold ones boast of a working life of 100 years. Thus, it can be argued that the CD is a better storage magnetic medium.

Read-write CD has a working life of more than 10 years enabling data to be re-written about 1000 times. CDs are considered highly reliable as their magnetic coating is designed to be immune to magnetic fields reducing the risk of data loss.

Magneto-Optic (MO) technology is the latest storage media invading data companies. It can be described as a hybrid read-write technology which provides longer, reliable storage than magnetic media.

Non-volatile Memory Devices technology has developed rapidly due to increased use of digital cameras. Digital cameras are now posing as a threat to CD-ROMs as reliable storage backup:

They are affordable and easily available

They have a high storage capacity

Their storage ability is not dependent on power

Article Source : Recovery From C Section

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Both Lee Morrell & James Wallis are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Lee Morrell has sinced written about articles on various topics from Information Technology, Data Recovery. For more information how can help your business, please visit