The rationale behind using an online backup service is simple. By saving your data on remote servers, the risk of catastrophic data loss as a result natural disasters, theft, technical failure, or other disaster is virtually eliminated. You can be assured, if your building is unavailable, all of your stored information can be recovered, and your business can get back to work quickly using the online backup service.

The online backup services providers will allow you to completely automate the service they offer - you can schedule your backups to start at regular intervals. You also have the flexibility to manually start them yourselves.

Most Online backup service providers offer:

* Continuous backup

* Offsite storage - Keep a separate copy of data at a remote location

* No wait recovery - data is recovered very quickly (Within Minutes)

* No tapes, no hassles - lower your costs, prices start at around $10 a month

Continuous Backup

Most online backup service companies will allow you to ensure that your data is continuously backed up as it changes, 24 hours a day, so it's always protected. A historical archive containing previous versions is also retained. Whether you need the most recent copy from a few minutes ago or a version from the past, the appropriate copy will be available with a few clicks in a web browser.

Offsite Storage

In the event of a disaster, your data is automatically stored offsite at a secure data center via state-of-the-art security technology. Offsite storage provides your business with disaster recovery for critical server data should your office be damaged or destroyed.

No-Wait Recovery

Restore your data fast. Instantly recover your data to the point of failure, eliminating downtime and data loss from relying on a previous night's backup. For added convenience and speed, most providers supply a unique web interface that allows you to initiate restores from any web browser anywhere.

No Tapes. No Hassles. Lower Costs.

Manual tape backup has proven to be extremely error-prone with failure rates as high as 50%. Compounding this risk is the complex and time-consuming nature of tape backup-particularly for businesses with limited IT resources.

Any online backup service allows you to focus on running, growing and improving your business - not the tedious backup requirements:

No tapes to purchase, handle, catalogue, or store

No backup staffing and scheduling

No driving tapes offsite

No rebuilding files from multiple tapes

No mechanical or environmentally-induced tape failures

No backup error messages to decipher

Many provide 100% guaranteed recovery

In essence for small monthly fee, you can implement a disaster recovery plan that will ensure that no matter what life throws at you and your company, you will be in a position to very quickly continue with your operations safe in the knowledge that your business data is safe.

An online backup service allows your company the flexibility you need in accessing your data.