June 16, 2005

Data Protection Like Never Before: Onsite Data / Offsite Backup

Backing up your data, is old news. There's articles about data backup all over the place, so I'm not going to bore you with yet another data backup article. You know you have to do it - the question is how?

There's two broad options. You can do the popular online backup, which overall, works great for smaller amounts of data. Services such as Backup My Info and dozens of other solutions (see a Yahoo list here) can easily and securely backup your data to an offsite location.

The other option, especially for larger amounts of data is a tape, CD or other media backup system. Using this system, (daily or more frequently if needed) your data is backed up to tape and then hopefully stored off site.

While both of these options are widely used and have their strengths there are some serious weaknesses.

Using an online data storage solution, means if you have large amounts of data (maybe 20GB) it's going to be pretty expensive.

Using tape or other media works many times, but these media also have a significant failure rate. Unless you are checking each back up and making sure the data was backed up properly you could be thinking your daily backups are fine only to find that the data is useless when you really need to use it in an emergency.

Another problem with back up is that if your file server goes down you might spend several days, restoring files to the backup server to get it into production again on your network.

Broadleaf Services', Archeon service, offers a hybrid approach which I really like.

Broadleaf's Archeon service features an onsite appliance, which resides in your office, and can store up to 500GB of data. Everyday, a backup of the Archeon appliance is transmitted to a data center. Instead of simply reacting to data loss, Broadleaf says that they are preventing it.

Any file stored on Archeon, which can also serve as a businesses primary file server, can not be deleted once Archeon has taken a snapshot and put it on its backup drive. If there is ever a problem with data you can simply roll back to a file you had saved an hour ago or last week. You can do this "roll back" onsite with no need to access offsite storage.

With Archeon, you've got double security. Your data is backed up onsite, but also automatically backed-up offsite every day. If the Archeon server appliance is destroyed you get your data loaded on a new appliance that is ready to be either be deployed to the business or a contingent office location the next day. But that's not all, maybe you need to work from home in the emergency - you can access your data via a VPN until the emergency is over.

Implementation, including a remotely managed, monitored server appliance repaired, upgraded and replaced for free for the life of the contract, would cost about $4,000 for up to 120B. Monthly fees are $245 for 60GB, $385 for 120GB and etc on up to 500GB.

If having your data not only backed up, but QUICKLY accessible is important to you, investing $4,000 plus $3,000 per year (60GB) might be worth it.

Managed solution providers such as Center Beam, Ever Dream and Compu Linx provide a range of solutions including similar data protection services as well.

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