Comments on: Blog dialogue: Online vs. traditional backup

By: Filesanywhere

Filesanywhere — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:24:56 +0000

Go for both online and traditional. As the adage goes don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Have several backups… secondary harddrives, CD/DVD disks, and online file storage.

For your online file storage needs try the online storage services of filesanywhere.com. We just turned 10 last month making us one of the oldest and most established & secure companies in this sector. In those 10 years we have built up the broadest, most flexible product compared to our competitors in online backup and online file storage.

So come by anytime to filesanywhere.com for your secure online storage needs. We are used by global 1000, Fortune 500, some of the largest banks and law firms in the world as well as small business (SME) and individuals.

10 years and going on strong. Upload your files and rest at ease. We’re not going anywhere.

By: Dobi

Dobi — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:00:57 +0000

Nice article!! I totally agree with using online backups myself since I lost all my files I saved on my external HDD. For me SafeCopy, www.safecopybackup.com is a perfect fit. I can backup USB drives, share files and backup both my Mac and PC with one account. I’m very happy with it and it may be worth checking out.

By: Online Backup: 100% Install | Security in an Unsecure World

Online Backup: 100% Install | Security in an Unsecure World — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:03:19 +0000

[...] My last post Online Backup any different from Traditional Backup for Laptop/Desktop? was quickly turned in to us vs. them argument by Beth Pariseau in her blog post Blog dialogue: Online vs. traditional backup. I guess my curiosity and conversation starter about slow adoption of online backup didn’t come across clearly. … Gupta probably has “too much” experience with backup clients to necessarily see things from the SMB customer’s point of view. For him, installing a backup client isn’t a big deal–for some, it might be enough of a reason to let somebody else deal with it. [...]

By: Danny

Danny — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:34:24 +0000

I agree. I own a small business, 1 server and 6 PC’s, 7 staff. As we are focused on growing the business the concept of backup whilst important was a real pain and never really happened. 30GB of data means backup locally or offsite, but as my DSL bandwidth is not great 30GB upload would take the best part of 6 weeks. The reason for me writing is to let you know I have found a solution by a company called perfectbackup (you can find them easily if you search) who offers the best of both. It will automatically backup my server to a local usb drive and also to their online storage facilities, the key word here is automatically. We never have to “waste” time backing up. The other nice facility is I sent them my data on a hard drive which they uploaded, now I only backup my daily changes.

By: Jesse G.

Jesse G. — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:04:14 +0000

Having both been an SMB owner and consulting in SMB environments I understand one thing. Most SMB IT management need a ‘fire and forget’ backup system. Or at least one that leads them along. When I was working for my last job with a pseudo-financial institution (actually they were more of a pseudo-institution) we had many requirements but no budget for backup. The VP of Infrastructure just couldn’t understand why the storage guy (me) couldn’t manage the storage and the day-to-day backups as well.

Most SMB clients are even worse off. They don’t even have a full-time storage person, let alone a full-time backup person. They need their system to run without constant monitoring, email them if there is a problem, and periodically nudge them to swap tapes. Other than that they just need to have the confidence that everything is just going to work.

By: Beth Pariseau

Beth Pariseau — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:35:32 +0000

Hey Anil, not sure about other bloggers, but for me it’s just news-writing habit; we always refer to people by their last name after the first mention.

i look forward to your further posts!

By: Anil Gupta

Anil Gupta — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:30:57 +0000

Beth,

Thanks for making my blog a regular stop despite me being irregular with blog posts.

My intention of covering Online Backup is not to differentiate or promote one method over another. But to show similarities and question using same architecture and strategy online as with onsite. Also, the post is setting stage for future opinions on developing a “real” BaaS offering instead of just moving onsite backup strategy online and call it BaaS.

Anil

P.S. BTW, I am curious why bloggers (you too) like to use my last name “Gupta” instead of first when referring to me. Never understood it.

By: John

John — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:54:03 +0000

Beth - You make a great point about the target audience for online backup and recovery services. In some small businesses, the “IT” person just might be the office admin or the resident tech geek. If the business is more technically sophisticated, there might be a full-time staff responsible for managing the entire IT environment.

Unless these businesses have the in-house expertise and/or resources, SMBs might be better off using a flexible, secure and reliable off-site backup and recovery service that protects their data and will grow with them as their business and data needs change. For this market, it’s oftentimes a lot easier and safer to outsource this process than rely on staff to ensure backup tapes/CDs/DVDs are transported safely off-site with the hope that data can be restored from them in the case of an emergency.

By: Scott Waterhouse

Scott Waterhouse — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:21:39 +0000

I guess I would add to your observations with the following:

- Encryption is non-trivial for the enterprise, and almost impossible for the SMB market. Online backup makes it “just happen”.

- Reliability. Almost every SMB will have issues with the reliability of their backup tapes, especially if they do not have a dedicated backup admin, and especially because they are phsyically handled (and mishandled) in the offsite process. To make matters worse, the quality of infrastructure they have for backup is not as robust as that in the enterprise data center. Online backup should be several orders of magnitude more reliable.

- Bandwidth constraints are over come by block level differencing or deduplication.

- Cost. We believe Mozy (and yes, full disclosure, I work for EMC) will be less expensive than owning the infrastructure, licensing, and administrative effort. As an aside, even the slightly more expensive enterprise pricing offered by Mozy for big customers is still less expensive than the internal cost of delivery for these customers (which already have large backup infrastructure and applications to leverage) to do desktop and remote backup.

Is there anything individually that is unique? Perhaps not. Do all the individual, and individually different things add up? Absolutely they do. Separately they are quantitative differences. In combination, online backup is a qualitatively different thing than doing it yourself the traditional way.

By: Michael Reagan

Michael Reagan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:20:40 +0000

Anil Gupta vastly “misunderstands” the backup needs of the SMB, (many of whom do not have a full-time IT staff), and he seems to underestimate the costs and expertise associated with a small company building their own “infrastructure.” A reliable, ready-made backup infrastructure is simply beyond the scope of many SMBs.

Michael Reagan www.netmass.com