Category Archives: Online Backup

Online Backup: Common Misconceptions

September 4, 2012

Undoubtedly Online Backup has a lot of advocates, yet there are many still unconvinced by its benefits. There are some common misconceptions about Online or Cloud Backup that often push customers away from using it.

Here are some of the most common fictitious theories:

All Online Backup vendors are the same

It may seem obvious that this statement is not true but there are plenty of circumstances of FAQs to demonstrate that a large percentage of people do not realise that there is a difference in the services offered by different Online Backup providers. Backup Technology recently experienced this itself when one of its blogs received a huge response. Several subscribers misinterpreted the article and therefore the difference between enterprise level backup solutions (provided by Backup Technology) and consumer level backup solutions.

Choosing a cloud backup vendor can be a critical decision for you whether it is for personal or commercial usage. Undeniably there is an abundance of Online Backup solutions available and the features that they offer can vary considerably. Some provide the bare minimum while others provide a huge range of features to enhance the service that they provide. These features may include the amount of storage, security, data restoration and technical support.� Thus it is essential that every customer investing in Cloud Backup carefully considers what they want from a solution and a provider when making a decision in order to find the best solution to meet their specific requirements.

Data restoration and recovery takes weeks

This varies from provider to provider. There is an element of truth to this statement if you pick the wrong backup provider. Conversely, with top quality Online Backup and Disaster Recovery solutions, data can be restored and recovered within hours.

Once again it is imperative that the proper research is conducted to find out which solution best caters to your needs. For enterprises, quick recovery times are imperative for their normal operating procedures to continue. �This alongside an adequate DR plan minimises downtime even further in the event of a disaster.

Online backup is expensive

Online backup is expensive

As it has already been stated, the Online Backup market is wide and varying, hence the price of different solutions differs greatly depending upon the features that each provider offers. Providers will also structure their pricing differently. For example, some will base it on amount of data backed up, whilst some will base it on the number of machines on which the software is installed.

Some other features that affect pricing are;

The number of generations of each file that are kept.
Data retention and archiving period options.
Managed backups vs. unmanaged backups.
The level of support available, e.g. 24/7 or normal office hours.

Investment in a good Online Backup solution can have enormous long-term financial benefits for enterprises by significantly lowering costs in the following ways:

Most providers have a pay-as-you-go pricing model so the customer only pays for the amount of data that it wishes to store.
Cloud resources can quickly be added with the fine granularity and have costs that scale smoothly without requiring large upfront investments.
Online eliminates expenditures for backup tapes, disks, external drives and other backup equipment.
The cloud platform manages and maintains the DR servers and storage devices, lowering IT costs and the need for manual intervention.

Furthermore, according to Symantec�s Disaster Preparedness Survey, the median cost of downtime for an SMB following a disaster is $12, 500 per day. The implementation of an effective Online Backup and Disaster Recovery plan can reduce this cost drastically by minimising downtime.

Online Backup is enough

Online backup is a foundational technology but for many customers, it is no longer enough. In an ideal world, data should be backed up in more than one location in order to minimise risk of data loss in the event of a disaster. It is always a good idea to keep a local copy as well as an off-site copy in the form of Online Backup to add an extra level of protection to your business.

Choosing your Online Backup provider

It is important to be wise when choosing your Online Backup provider. Secure backup and reliable restoration are foundational to your business� success. Investigate your options critically. Be sure that your provider fulfills your specific requirements, whether you are looking for a consumer or enterprise level solution.�

The Internet Group Partners With Leading Online Backup Provider

February 4, 2011 backuptech

IT Managed Services Provider (MSP), The Internet Group, is delighted to announce that it has partnered with the award winning Online Backup provider, Backup Technology. This partnership will allow The Internet Group to offer the most advanced Online Backup technology available.

Whilst traditional Online Backup is a fantastic accompaniment to traditional backups such as tape and local Network Attached Storage (NAS), it has never been perceived by the SME market as a core backup strategy. Even with modern internet connections, uploading all of your company data to an Online Backup provider and keeping this data up to date with regular backups would be next to impossible. In contrast, the Online Backup feature provided by Backup Technology is a true �tape replacement� and is capable of offering improved functionality, faster backups and the ability to run much more frequent off site backups for critical data. As well as this, research carried out by The Internet Group confirms that many SME customers are looking for ways to automate daily tape changes each night and see this technology as real benefit to their businesses as it now means they do not have to be involved with the backup process.

The Backup Technology product also adds extra functionality such as the ability to backup mobile workforce laptops without waiting for them to visit the office, offering constant data protection.

Adam Maurice, Managing Director of The Internet Group comments: �We looked at other vendors who are also powered by similar technology but Backup Technology clearly demonstrated throughout the vendor selection process that they were the clear market leader in this field. Our clients will be able to benefit from this technology in the coming weeks.�

Backup Technology�s core business has been built around its Online Backup service, and they currently protect in excess of 5 Petabytes of customer data in their UK and US data centres. Backup Technology�s services are powered by Asigra; the world�s leading software for Online Data backup and Disaster Recovery. Asigra�s agentless architecture makes it faster and easier to deploy than traditional agent based solutions in both physical and virtual environments. Backup Technology�s expertise in deploying Asigra services allows them to protect customers with less than 100 Gigabytes of data to over 100 Terabytes, including the likes of The British Red Cross, Liverpool Football Club and The Government Offices.

Maurice continues: �We are proud to have Backup Technology as part of our increasing group of partners and look forward to bringing their technology to our client base.�

Ritchie Fiddes, Executive Vice President of Sales at Backup Technology comments: �We are delighted to announce our partnership with The Internet Group. They have demonstrated a great understanding of the technical and commercial aspects of successfully delivering our services to their customer base. We look forward to working closely with them over the coming years.�

�ends

About The Internet Group
The Internet Group is a multi-award winning specialist IT managed services provider to UK and International businesses. The company provides a complete range of solutions � from service desk support and project delivery resource, through to a fully outsourced managed service � to help its customers ensure operational excellence at all times. Through its team of highly skilled engineers, consultants, software developers, and project managers, The Internet Group provides clients with a solution aligned to their individual business needs, helping to turn IT from an overhead into an asset.
By utilising the best practice frameworks of ITIL and through its work with the Service Desk Institute (SDI) and adoption of their 500 point standards based accreditation programme, The Internet Group provides a high level of service management. As a result and in recognition of its customer-led approach, the company was initially awarded a 3 star SDI accreditation in 2009, and have maintained this year on year. To reinforce this accreditation in 2010 The Internet Group won SDI�s IT Service Excellence Supplier of the Year award (as nominated by their clients).
The Internet Group has also been previously recognised by Computer Weekly as the Best Place to Work in IT and included in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, due to its exceptional business growth. The company works with clients across a range of industry sectors, including professional services, recruitment, retail and manufacturing.

For more information visit www.theinternetgroup.com

About Backup Technology
Backup Technology is the leading provider of online backup and disaster recovery solutions.
Since its inception, the company has tripled in size year on year and now protects the data of some of the largest companies in the world. A large element of Backup Technology�s success can be accredited to their partnership with Asigra � the world-leading provider of Online Backup and Disaster Recovery software.
With individual customer data sizes ranging from 50GB to over 100TB, Backup Technology currently protect well over 5 Petabytes of data including more than 20 billion files. With clients across all industries, be it public or private sector, the impressive portfolio of customers includes The Red Cross, Liverpool Football Club and The Government Offices

For more information visit www.backup-technology.com

Will the BT race to infinity increase Online Backup Interest?

January 19, 2011

The BT �Race to Infinity� is a new fibre optic broadband roll out that promises to deliver up to 40Mb fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) internet to its customers around the UK, at no extra cost. BT has pledged that this service will reach over 10 million users by 2012, or more specifically for the start of the London Olympics. Of course fibre-optic broadband is not new, companies like Virgin Media having been offering their service for over 3 years, however their coverage is limited to �Virgin Media Areas�.

The widespread introduction of this high speed or �Next Generation Access�, could see more and more business look into the Online Backup market. This is due to a myth that you need �fast� Internet connections to utilise an Online Backup solution. Whilst this is the case for many low tier products, enterprise offerings such as Asgira that use WAN optimisation techniques to ensure that large volumes of data can be protected over modest connections.

This myth, although false, has caused many companies to fail to even look into the Online Backup market. However, as the uptake of this high-speed Internet connection increases, it is expected that the interest in Online Backup and cloud solutions in general will also increase among the SMB market as their Internet connections increase in speed without the extra costs.

These extra demands in Online Backup, would then raises issues with software�s back end scalability, i.e. just how well will some service providers be able to cope with the increase in storage requirements? The ability to cope depends entirely on the software, backend hardware and the expertise of the company employees.

Could this high speed internet roll out spell the end for old fashioned, out of date and unreliable tape backup once and for all?

Cloud Computing � The backbone of our digital future?

December 21, 2010

The European Commissioner Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, in a recent address to the Universit� Paris-Dauphine, stated �cloud computing may indeed become one of the backbones of our digital future�.

During the presentation the Commissioner detailed plans by the EU to make data protection rules clear across all member states, due to difference depending on culture and legal traditions. The plan for set �cloud-friendly� rules will help complete the Single Digital Market in Europe, which she sees cloud computing being the key factor in this approach.

She goes on to state, �A cloud without robust data protection is not the sort of cloud we need. So these features should be well-integrated in the design of cloud computing products and services, from the very beginning of the business processes… the winners will be those manufacturers and services providers � from whatever country of origin � that understand the competitive advantage that in-built privacy features provide�.

Whilst these concerns are not unfounded at a European level, any reputable Online Backup and Cloud Hosting company here in the UK has strict rules it must already adhere to. The Data Protection Act 1998 prevents companies releasing any personal information to any other third party without written consent. ALL Online/Cloud Backup companies should be encrypting all its customer data anyway (an in-built privacy feature!), meaning all data cannot be read, changed or shared.

All businesses can gain certification in a series of standards to improve its data management and security. ISO 9001 and 27001 accreditations ensure a company has in place strict guidelines on how it manages and secures it�s own data as well as its customers. A properly ISO accredited Cloud Backup and Hosting company offers extra peace of mind to its clients as all its services have been independently audited and certified.

Until the �Cloud friendly� rules are clearly defined by the EU, Online Backup and Cloud Hosting companies can ensure they are already gaining the necessary certifications to meet data security and management.

Online Backup For WordPress Plugin

September 23, 2009

Update – 23-07-11: We have now released a newer of the plugin which has many new features.�For information on the latest version, please visit the�Free WordPress Backup�page.

If you have any problems using the plugin or require support you can check out common problems and solutions on our

FAQ page. If you continue to have problems you can find information on where to get help on the Free WordPress Backup page.

The following applies to the first version of the plugin only.

When we first started using WordPress to power our own website earlier this year we were pleased to see that there were a few�plugins available to back up our site but disappointed that none of them offered true online backup.

Blogging is big business and if you’ve invested hundreds or thousands of hours writing blog posts you need to have the proper systems in place to ensure that something as simple as disk failure at your web host doesn’t mean all your work is lost.

To help the blogging community we’re giving a way a free plugin with 50 MiB of free space on our secure servers.

5 Steps to Total Protection

Step 1: Download the plugin here.
Step 2: Upload the plugin to your blog using the Plugins > Add New > Upload feature in your WordPress Dashboard.
Step 3: Register for your 50 MiB of free space on our backup portal.
Step 4: Configure your plugin to enable encryption and provide the login details of your online account by clicking Change Settings on the Tools > Online Backup page.
Step 5: Schedule your backup by clicking Change Schedule on the same page!

Your WordPress database is now protected! You can then proceed to login to our backup portal to manage and download your backups.

Video Guide

Added 24-01-2011

A very generous community member has published a video on how to register and install the wordpress plugin. JupiterJim has posted this video on his blog which can be found here*. Backup Technology is extremely grateful for the effort that JupiterJim has put in to this tutorial.

* Please note that this is an external link and Backup Technology is not responsible for its content. For more information, please refer to our privacy policy.

Your Data is Secure

At Backup Technology we specialize in online backup and disaster recovery. We provide enterprise level backup services to businesses and individuals complete with disaster recovery plans and tests involving the recovery of entire networks.
All of the data backed up by our customers is highly encrypted and compressed and stored in our primary secure datacentre in Manchester, with a complete mirror of every single backup in our secondary secure datacentre in London.

So with our experience and expertee you can be assured your WordPress database will be in good hands.

Features

Our plugin has been built bottom up and based around creating a highly secure and reliable backup plugin with all the features a blog master requires to protect their blog content.

While developing the plugin we worked closely with several major blog owners in order to get the right features implemented in the way they wanted them. Following is an overview of the major features.

Online Backup
Our plugin was built with remote online backup in mind.
This saves you space in your mailbox by storing your backups on our secure servers. Every site will get a 50 MiB free quota, and when it is reached the oldest backups will be removed to make space for the newest, so you will always have the latest backups available. Each time a backup is added we’ll also send you a notification email to give you peace of mind that backups are actually happening.
To setup Online Backup you just need to register an account with us and configure the plugin with your login details, as described in the instructions above, and you can login to our backup portal anytime to manage and download your backups.
Locked Backups
To prevent an older backup from being overwriting by newer backups, you can login to our backup portal and “lock” it! This will mark the backup as permanent and prevent it from ever been overwritten. Be sure to leave enough unlocked backups so you can still receive new ones though!
Email Backup
As well as been able to send backups to our secure servers for storage, you can have backups sent as email attachments directly to your inbox. The email attachment is also compressed and encrypted in the same as with Online Backup.
To decrypt an ecrypted backup emailed to you, simply use the “Decrypt a Backup” page in the plugin.
Compression
With the majority of blog posts been text documents, compression techniques can work extremely well. Using the built-in ZLIB support available in nearly all PHP installations today, our plugin can backup a 50 MiB wordpress database into a miniscule 5 MiB file (that’s a 90% reduction!)
And with a 50 MiB storage quota FREE… that would give you 10 days of backups!
Encryption
Fully supporting the “php-mcrypt” extension available on most web servers, our plugin will allow you to encrypt your backups with DES, AES128 or AES256 encryption.
All you need to do is simply enter the settings page, choose an encryption type (we recommend AES128 for the best balance encryption) and enter a password to use as your secret encryption key. Once done, every one of your backups will be encrypted before been emailed to you and/or sent to our secure servers, giving you peace of mind that nobody will ever be able to access your information without your secret encryption key.
However, we must stress that you do not lose your secret encryption key! If you don’t have the key you will never be able to access the backup. It’s that secure!
Scheduling
Don’t want to have to run a backup yourself on a daily basis? Just configure our plugin to run on one of your WordPress schedules!
You can have it send the backup to our secure servers and also have it email it to you when the schedule runs.
On-Demand Backup
Just added a large amount of blog posts in a short space of time? Just go to the Online Backup plugin page and kick-off an on-demand backup. You can have it sent to our secure servers, emailed to you, and even download it directly to your computer as soon as it finishes.

Support & Bug Reporting

If you have any problems using the plugin or require support you can check out common problems and solutions on our FAQ page. If you continue to have problems you can find information on where to get help�here.

Screenshots

Screenshot

Retention Policies are expensive � Not with Online Backup

August 19, 2009

Mathias Thurman�recently wrote an article about how having to buy new tapes was costing his company $40,000 each month, because he wasn�t be law allowed to re-use any tapes under 7 years old.� This huge expenditure for new tapes is not uncommon among many companies, and the cost of storing and transporting these tapes often results in companies simply being unable to meet with the law set in place resulting in severe fines and penalties issues by watchdogs and authorities.� However this large figure can be significantly reduced with online data backup from Backup Technology and Asigra.

Asigra has developed automatic retention policies that can be customised by the user, to fit in with their own company data retention policies and also those enforced by the FSA and industry governing bodies.� This allows companies to store all the appropriate data in Backup Technology�s highly secure, geographically separate data centres in Manchester and London, for the total amount of time needed, moving any data older than a certain period into a lower availability vault saving the client even more money in storage costs.� Automatic deletion of all data once it has reached its retention life span also helps to keep data backup storage costs down, and administrative costs and time expenses down.

Asigra can also help I.T. administrators stay on top of more complex retention policies that are being put in place by governing bodies, for example within the FSA regulations there are many different retention policies that apply to different types of data, such as employee records, different sets of accounts.� These variations in retention policies can easily be applied to separate data sets, giving the I.T. administrator yet more control over their protected data.

Utilising reliable disk to disk storage, extraordinary power of the BluArc infrastructure and technological capabilities of the Asigra software, BTL has helped both household names and SME�s alike to save money on the data retention polices they are being forced to put in place.