Anybody know about Remote Back-up Solutions?
Discussion
We have a Small Business Server 2003 with about 10GB of data (likely to grow by about 2-3GB per year).
Currently we use an HP DAT drive for backups, but this relies on people remembering to bring in tapes and change them. Plus, although we buy new tapes and clean the drive regularly, I allways worry it will go wrong when we really need it!
I’ve heard about remote backup solutions which automatically back up your data overnight via the internet to a secure location.
Does anybody have any experience of these and know the approximate costs?
Many thanks,
TSS
Currently we use an HP DAT drive for backups, but this relies on people remembering to bring in tapes and change them. Plus, although we buy new tapes and clean the drive regularly, I allways worry it will go wrong when we really need it!
I’ve heard about remote backup solutions which automatically back up your data overnight via the internet to a secure location.
Does anybody have any experience of these and know the approximate costs?
Many thanks,
TSS
We use a company called Clunk Click ( Cue the Jimmy Savile jokes) think they are based in Milton Keynes. We have been pleased with the service they have provided, and the cost is very resonable you can find more details here : www.clunkclick.net/
blondemoment said:
I use www.backupmystuff.co.uk - very easy to retrieve lost files (after I accidently deleted my emails yesterday, it came in quite handy!) It comes with a free trial for a 15 days too.
Don't forget if you're doing this from a home broadband line that the upload speed is only a small fraction of the download - that's what the "A" in ADSL stands for.
Also, blondemoment, neither of your web sites render properly in Firefox.
My company sells this sort of solution.
www.sensible.co.uk/networksbackup.htm
We offer a free fourteen day trial.
www.sensible.co.uk/networksbackup.htm
We offer a free fourteen day trial.
Hi
My company, Cantarus, offer an automated off-site backup solution called RemoteReplicator. PHer flyingjase is currently using our service for his company's Small Business Server.
The link above provides a lot of information on the service including pricing, but to summarise we own all the hardware and software used to provide the service, which we find to be quite rare*. We use ex-NATO nuclear bunkers for the physical location of the servers so they are securely stored underground in air-conditioned rooms behind hermetically sealed blast doors and two metre thick steel-reinforced concrete walls. Internet connections are provided by mutiple ISPs with optical fibres entering the building at different compass points. The datacentres are run by a dedicated dual-fed sub-station backed-up by twin diesel generators with underground tanks that can run the facilities independtly for months.
Digital security is provided at the perimeter by state-of-the-art hardware firewalls with Intrusion Prevention Systems and gateway antivirus. Each backup server also runs a local software firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware solution. Data is encrypted during transmission and storage and data retrieval can be limited to specified IPs.
Finally, every backup server has dual network cards with auto-failover, RAID5, dual power supplies and a hardware remote access controller, the latter providing proactive alerts of hardware faults, server temperature varations, etc. Backup servers are contained in locked cabinets with Uninterruptible Power Supplies.
The system informs you and us of the success or failure of every backup so minimising the risks of the backup failing and it not being picked up for days. It will support all versions of Windows post-95 and Linux and has plug-ins with native support for MS Exchange and SQL Server, MySQL, Lotus Notes, etc.
Most companies re-sell the services of another provider. The advantage to owning our own infrastructure is that we have full access and control over all aspects of the backup process and system, which can come in extremely useful if you need help in an emergency. For example, in an emergency we can take an External Hard Disk Drive (EHDD), copy your data off the server and physically deliver it to your site. This is much faster than trying to download Gigabytes of data via a typical Internet connection.
If you'd like more information or a 30-day free trial then please email me through my profile on via the Contact Us page on the Cantarus website.
Cheers.
roadie.
My company, Cantarus, offer an automated off-site backup solution called RemoteReplicator. PHer flyingjase is currently using our service for his company's Small Business Server.
The link above provides a lot of information on the service including pricing, but to summarise we own all the hardware and software used to provide the service, which we find to be quite rare*. We use ex-NATO nuclear bunkers for the physical location of the servers so they are securely stored underground in air-conditioned rooms behind hermetically sealed blast doors and two metre thick steel-reinforced concrete walls. Internet connections are provided by mutiple ISPs with optical fibres entering the building at different compass points. The datacentres are run by a dedicated dual-fed sub-station backed-up by twin diesel generators with underground tanks that can run the facilities independtly for months.
Digital security is provided at the perimeter by state-of-the-art hardware firewalls with Intrusion Prevention Systems and gateway antivirus. Each backup server also runs a local software firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware solution. Data is encrypted during transmission and storage and data retrieval can be limited to specified IPs.
Finally, every backup server has dual network cards with auto-failover, RAID5, dual power supplies and a hardware remote access controller, the latter providing proactive alerts of hardware faults, server temperature varations, etc. Backup servers are contained in locked cabinets with Uninterruptible Power Supplies.
The system informs you and us of the success or failure of every backup so minimising the risks of the backup failing and it not being picked up for days. It will support all versions of Windows post-95 and Linux and has plug-ins with native support for MS Exchange and SQL Server, MySQL, Lotus Notes, etc.
Most companies re-sell the services of another provider. The advantage to owning our own infrastructure is that we have full access and control over all aspects of the backup process and system, which can come in extremely useful if you need help in an emergency. For example, in an emergency we can take an External Hard Disk Drive (EHDD), copy your data off the server and physically deliver it to your site. This is much faster than trying to download Gigabytes of data via a typical Internet connection.
If you'd like more information or a 30-day free trial then please email me through my profile on via the Contact Us page on the Cantarus website.
Cheers.
roadie.
t5grf said:
We use a company called Clunk Click ( Cue the Jimmy Savile jokes) think they are based in Milton Keynes. We have been pleased with the service they have provided, and the cost is very resonable you can find more details here : www.clunkclick.net/
I used them too for a specific project; very good service.
zumbruk said:
hermetically sealed blast doors and two metre thick steel-reinforced concrete walls
Must have been a bitch to cable that
I've run cabling into a bullion vault in the City. Or rather, I haven't, but the bloke with the BFO diamond drill has ....
Just do what they use to do in nuclear power stations - run the data cable through the big door in the outer dome (the one that seals all the nasties in if it goes horribly wrong) :-)
Bit like MIR...
Pricey and inflexible IMO.
While it can be OK from a disaster recovery point of view (ie. data's gone, we need to get it back), most don't offer much in the way of retention beyond a month unless you pay even more for it. Tape lets you keep full snapshots of the state of things really cheaply, hence why most will keep month-end backups for a long time. People don't always realise they've lost something until much later, or if something gets changed, overwritten or corrupted and no-one notices until months or years down the line when they need it again.
I've looked at Livevault pricing (the company that John Cleese did the ad for a while ago) and you're looking at about $22 a month per Gb with 30 days retention. Even if you're buying a new tape for every month-end and a new drive every 3 years, the online backup is a lot more expensive.
What would concern me too is the time needed to move all that data when you have to do a full restore - say a disk controller dies and knackers the hard disks. Bit less of a concern now with faster internet connections and with a fairly small dataset like that, but even so it'd potentially take a day or more to get that data back. Even a really old, slow DAT drive could get 10Gb back in an hour or so.
While it can be OK from a disaster recovery point of view (ie. data's gone, we need to get it back), most don't offer much in the way of retention beyond a month unless you pay even more for it. Tape lets you keep full snapshots of the state of things really cheaply, hence why most will keep month-end backups for a long time. People don't always realise they've lost something until much later, or if something gets changed, overwritten or corrupted and no-one notices until months or years down the line when they need it again.
I've looked at Livevault pricing (the company that John Cleese did the ad for a while ago) and you're looking at about $22 a month per Gb with 30 days retention. Even if you're buying a new tape for every month-end and a new drive every 3 years, the online backup is a lot more expensive.
What would concern me too is the time needed to move all that data when you have to do a full restore - say a disk controller dies and knackers the hard disks. Bit less of a concern now with faster internet connections and with a fairly small dataset like that, but even so it'd potentially take a day or more to get that data back. Even a really old, slow DAT drive could get 10Gb back in an hour or so.
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