All posts by Callum Huddlestone

Why is Asigra the Most Reliable Cloud Backup Software Solution?

December 10, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

The significance of a technology is evaluated through its capability to accomplish various business targets. One such technology we want to discuss today is a cloud backup and data storage software.

Asigra, founded in 1986, is considered the most reliable cloud backup and recovery software. Asigra offers security, affordability, reliability and manageability. It is one of the leading software providers for cloud backup and data recovery. Asigra has made managed business backup system very simple.

Managed backup service providers are attracted to using the Asigra solution for the profit margins, recurring revenue, marketing support, client retention model, FIPS certification, and the company ethics. In addition, Asigra allows its partners to go to market fast, in unprecedented ways. Partners are able to enjoy the various support services that are developed by Asigra.

By developing customer base and increasing margins, Asigra partners get the possibility to make a lot of money. By giving high tech value added services, Asigra’s partners can avoid channel conflict, triumph over technology restraints, improve customer satisfaction, receive ecosystem support, and access marketing and sales support to flourish their business.

Asigra reduces ownership risk by minimizing the operational threats. Asigra’s Hybrid Partner Program gives access to resources like programs for sales certification, training and market readiness kits. With the help of Asigra’s automated backup software, it becomes easy for partners to concentrate on different business activities to achieve their target. Partners are given choices to select the level of involvement and stay responsive to meet the demands of clients with hybrid, public or private cloud services delivery.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are valuable for demanding clients. SLAs develop trust of customers. Asigra cloud backup and recovery software can protect several Petabytes of data from one or many sources. In addition to maximum storage capacity, Asigra software is legally compliant for acts, such as: PCI-DSS, Data Protection Act, HIPAA, and Sarbanes-Oxley. Additional point that make Asigra trustworthy for backup service vendors and end users is its flawless reputation.

Asigra has developed a robust ecosystem with passion meticulously. It provides cost effective and perfect support program to beat the competition in the industry. Asigra has spent a great deal of time and energy in developing such a system. Partners are given immediate access to CDM (Channel Development Manager). Additionally, peer network is also within access of partners. Free partner conference is held annually to make Asigra ecosystem friendly and to exchange information and experiences among partners.

Asigra covers all avenues that lead towards business growth. It gives surety to manage risks, client retention, and profit optimization. Asigra partners provide reliable cloud backup services that are scalable, robust, risk aware and consistent to worldwide clients. Asigra cloud backup offers great features and has the ability to examine backup repositories to find out errors and when it finds one, it activates algorithms to rectify the error(s).

If you are interested to introduce services concerning data recovery and online data backup, Asigra is the ultimate destination to achieve your goals successfully.

We, at Backup Technology, know Asigra software inside out; and we have been Asigra’s partner since 2005, and 3D Hybrid partner since 2010. Let us help you with your cloud online backup, data storage and recovery needs.

Factors Affecting Data Centre Transformation

December 2, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

Although the operational essentials in companies focus management attention on investment in CAPEX or OPEX, the service levels that are expected to be achieved usually take resultant assessment of transformation of data centre and storage. The data centre in this contest is simply a facility used to enclose computer systems and other associated components like storage systems, telecommunications and others. But, the exact driving force for the actual process in transformation is simply economics. Latest technologies — improved performance, accessibility or scalability, with enhanced use of the resources at cheaper costs prove to be very attractive.

It has been estimated that data centre requirements for growing business will double yearly. The budgets of the growth phase must be directed in the direction of growing outlays directly to information technology expenditure yearly. Conversely, there can be hurdles associated with investment in storage efficiency and optimization technologies in order to manage their increasing innovations, as well as requirements for data storage and also escalating the prevailing data centre resources use.

How do organisations achieve needed efficiency? This can only start with knowledge of the fact that there is increasing requirement for automation, but the prevailing tools for management are incompetent and inefficient operationally. More so, organisations will find out that the ongoing physical server investments as well as their maintenance will serve one purpose which is to increase the entire expenses for operation and investment in server visualization. This will restrain substantial server costs and promotes material gains by decreasing overall cost of operation. Integrated virtual servers will help contribute a lot in achieving a self-motivated, collective resource environment that makes well-organised Information Technology (IT) service management and transformation of data centre.

The benefits associated with right sizing are not to be rejected. Organisations will estimate the most advantageous service levels needed from applications for their business components. The service level objectives identified will be the determinant factors for data centre transformation. There will also be the need for integration of different kinds of tools with fundamental storage infrastructure and those tools will be performance, availability, and recovery of applications. In order to make sure there is a high level of coordination in the framework and in due course allow automation of the IT service for the organisation, management consoles or virtual machine specific storage tasks will need to be built-in. Consequently, this is going to form architecture for either private or public cloud that scale out data centre transformation and provides end-to-end workload provisioning, as well as storage against the service level delivery objectives.

As discussed above, data centre transformation is not going to be revolutionary; rather, it will be a slow and evolutionary process. There are lots of things that can result from data centre transformation, and some of them include: Management reorganization, considerations of cost model, highly developed scaling for both servers and storage and convergence and / or amalgamation of diverse technology area to benefit the organisation. The more there is advances in new technologies, the more emergence of other factors that can possibly influence data centre transformation.

The Importance of Support Levels in Partnership

November 30, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

Lack of support in any project can easily result in failure even with simplest project or activity. It is important for you to know that sending or moving your mission-critical data to a third party service provider online is never an easy attempt. Doing such thing without employing proper support can lead to very serious issues that can cripple the entire activity and/or the organisation.

Therefore, you need to examine your service provider, whose mission is to bring to the table a particular skill set to your organisation. More so, exploring the skill sets of the service provider should provide you with the freedom you need to develop the particular talent you have. If your service provider can say that they can bring talents to complement your business, then you are in good hands. Otherwise, it is time for you to search for the partner that will provide you with the freedom you need.

Cloud based services can abstract software and software infrastructure maintenance from your company at the same time optimising on the current hardware you already have. The service provider should be responsible for upgrading hardware and software, without any kind of downtime. Also, there should be availability of data system for your enterprise at all times. The data should be considerably scalable as well as activity that involve trouble shooting at the service provider’s end should flawlessly transfer you to the “hot site” or even to the “disaster recovery site” so as to provide your business with enough convenience option. Disaster recovery procedures must also be an integral part of the offerings. Data mirroring features should be automatic. Compliance to legal mandates must be incorporated into the backup process and archiving.

On a daily operation, there must be support services available for you to carry on your activities; and you should be allowed to refer or contact your technical support team members, assigned by your service provider, for any kind of problems. Customers that are using their services should be sure that they can get not less than 99.99% uptime. Ideally, 24/7 help desk should be provided by the service provider in order to make it easy for customers to get the help they need for their service. That can also make the customers to be sure of getting response from the service provider within 24 or at most 48 hours.

Another thing expected of the service provider is to regularly monitor the health of all customer accounts. If any suspicious activity is detected in the account, such activities must be logged in to the system and reported. In order to automatically trigger off warnings when there is any form of spur-of-the-moment activities, the software alerts must be configured right.

The cloud based support services must help to improve your return on investment (ROI). It must give evidence about the data storage model being marketed by your service provider to assist you in your exclusive business prospect.

Backup Technology is proud to be a 3D Hybrid partner of Asigra, which gives us the best support to reach our business goals.

How Do You Protect Company Data Found in Laptops?

November 18, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

Portability feature of laptops have given convenience to its users. It is a fact that portability nature of mobile devices has made it easy for bandits to target laptops to make some money or get access to restricted data. It is necessary for laptop users to take some additional precautionary measures to protect their laptop data from loss or theft. Today, most enterprises allow employees to work using laptops and the mobile workforce is growing steadily. These enterprises have an overriding concern to keep their sensitive information safe. Here are some guidelines that will enhance security of your laptop data:

First of all, there must be primary security protocols for laptop to protect data. Use of password, anti-virus software to work against malware, and hard drive encryption are some of the ways to improve security. In addition to malware threats or theft, data loss is possible due to human error. In order to cope with such situations, it is necessary to activate on-going continuous data protection on to a secondary portable drive. To improve security of data, the laptop drive can be partitioned. The removable drive should be stored away from the laptop to prevent simultaneous loss.

Companies should clearly communicate with all of its mobile workers that laptop data must be backed up on a regular basis in to their online repository vaults. Whenever a laptop has made an online connection, an automated alert should be generated reminding the user to backup the data. Easy to use, client based software should be installed. The owner of the laptop should be given access to upload important data online to the remote servers using the client interface. It is important to disclose that user ID and password to access and upload or download data online should not be saved in the laptop itself. It needs to be kept in a secure location, away from the laptop or its case.

To reinforce a secure environment, the company should have a policy to allow data downloads in an emergency situations only. Laptop must only contain data that is related to ongoing tasks. It should not have access to data that is not currently in use. Users of laptop must be given training on how to download data, and they should only keep relevant data on the drive. Unnecessary data must be deleted or removed from the laptop disk. It is necessary to perform laptop data cleaning whenever the laptop is returned back to the company after completing a field trip.

To protect data, laptop users should use private networks only. Usually, open networks are in access at hotel rooms, airports, stations and conference centres. Open networks are not safe for laptop users. It is easy for hackers to connect hacking programs with open network and compromise your data, including emails, password, and all data stored in the laptop.

Laptop users are required to encrypt data before transferring from laptop to office network. Encryption data requires specific key, password or PIN number. In other words, only authorised users, who have the right key have the right to use encrypted data. Moreover, only Virtual Private Network should be used to prevent data loss. If you cannot get access to Virtual Private Network of your company, it is good to use network from reliable service providers. It gives guarantee that all data is fully protected and not in range of other users.

Technical Support Levels for Small, Medium, and Enterprise Businesses

November 10, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

Companies signing up for cloud backup and data storage services are not just looking for backup solutions. They want more than that; they want a partner that can give them support at all times. Companies anticipate to get support from the subject experts to keep their valuable information safe. They expect the experts to know how to backup data, what is important for their company, where to keep the data, and when to make backups. These companies prefer to reduce the number of technical workers in their offices, and instead rely on the technical skills of the service providers to solve any software issues and backup problems. Problems can occur at any time, therefore, such enterprises need round the clock support. Technical 24 x 7 support is what they expect from service providers.

Then, the question arises whether cloud backup firms can provide 24 x 7 technical support or not? Understandably, service providers cannot give Yes or No answer to this question. However, they have various types of services, including: Web-based Support, which is given by all service providers. This service includes FAQs or Frequently Asked Questions and their relevant answers. In addition, all service providers offer Contact Form to write your queries and get answers from the support team within a day or two. Forms are delivered to a given email address of technical staff and customers need to wait for their turn to receive answers.

A small number of service providers have established their Discussion Forum for clients. Common issues are discussed here by users and support team takes relevant actions to solve their issues. Though such forums can be used any time, users cannot expect to get an immediate response from staff.

Many online backup service providers use software to send Alerts when recovery or backup process stops working. In case of data breaches or access of Unauthorised User to get sensitive information, automated alerts are generated to inform the service provider or the administrator or both. Software is programmed to give response whenever there is a threat to customer information. Such type of software informs service providers when clients cannot solve out issues or unable to show reaction against security alert. To overcome such situations, service providers generate periodic alerts or call the client directly with a request to solve the issue and provide proper guidance.

There are some sophisticated backup services that provide additional support services at a reasonable rate. Clients are given favour to keep in touch with technical staff through phone calls to get solution of hardware or software issues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On the other hand, onsite assistance is given at premium basis, where by a technical support staff may be stationed at the clients’ location all day through out the term of the contract to solve out issues as they arise.

Customers need to decide what kind of technical support level they need to sign up for while they are evaluating a potential solution. Before signing up with an online backup and recovery service, companies should check the nature of the services offered and their own requirements. It is required to go through Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in detail.

When customers have understood the different service levels available, they can select the right service provider. Backup Technology provides 24 x 7 technical support and built-in automated alert system, which notifies concerned parties in case of failed backups or recoveries.

Assess Cloud Storage Services Before Actually Using Them

November 4, 2015 Callum Huddlestone

While cloud backups and storage and recovery solutions are great for your organisation, it is important for you to know that it is not without limitations. For that reason, SMBs that are currently planning to move to the cloud must take some time and check the advantages and disadvantages associated with cloud backup services before migrating to the cloud. So, the extent at which the pros associated with cloud storage outweigh the cons, will determine your decision whether to jump in the waggon and ride the cloud or not.

Cloud backup and storage has been made an interactive backup and storage option suitable for both small, medium and enterprise organisations through bandwidth and capacity optimisation technologies, and multi-tenant architectures on the Internet. There is integration of range of business continuity solutions with the concept of server abstraction; and provision of high availability of critical workloads are the product of the solutions generated in the cloud. This will also facilitate the speeding up of time to market by using highly developed file imaging and site recovery options, coupled with all-embracing interoperability and best practises.

Cloud backup and storage service providers use high-tech tools in order to meet with the needs and demands of their customers. The migrations, upgrades and outdated technology are abstracted to the level of the service provider, giving users the freedom to enjoy data storage as a measurable utility with easy payment option. There are lots of security services that are made available at the price of subscription to the customers in the cloud and some of them include: file compression, disk based backup, encryption, duplication of data, server and storage virtualisation, application of particular security, and tiered storage using security authorisation. Some of the service providers improve their service by incorporating 24/7 customer support, which helps to intimate the customer against any form of security violations.

As cloud services are based on the Internet, the service consumer may not really be in control of the service level agreement (SLA) or even performance guarantees. Limitation of bandwidth is capable of making storage and data recovery a tedious and difficult task. There may be problems with exit strategy if the organisation decides to pull out from the agreement. Termination fees, cancellation charges, data extraction costs are the possible issues you may face. That is why you need to examine the SLAs before signing on the dotted lines.

Therefore, SMBs should embark on a though assessment of cloud services before hitching their waggon to the cloud. You can get competitive edge in your niche and also redefine your company just with effective planning and implementation in the cloud. It is recommended that you embrace the cloud, but ensure that you are entering this market being vigilant and alert. Therefore, you should not migrate to the cloud without getting a real understanding of what you are engaging your company into, as well as the potential disadvantages and advantages associated with cloud services.

At Backup Technology, we are always ready to assist you in your efforts to migrate to the cloud by taking the time and advising you at all levels. We will help you get over bandwidth issues by seeding your initial data to our servers with no hidden fees, with clearly spelt out SLAs.