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Cloud Backup, Offsite Backup, Online Backup

The Merits of Offsite Backup

Before we consider the merits of offsite backup we need to specify what we mean by ‘offsite backup’. Businesses understand the importance of keeping, maintaining, and safeguarding data by creating copies — also known as backups — to a remote offsite location. Offsite backup refers to the duplication of files to a separate geographical site, which can be another building or in the cloud over the Internet. Such data protection is helpful in situations, where data recovery becomes essential, and prevent any data loss which may propagates over a network. So what are the merits of offsite backup?

So now to the merits of offsite backup. Offsite backup solutions provide several benefits to businesses, such as increased reliability and efficiency and are based upon such capabilities and features, which most companies may be able to afford. Maintenance of infrastructure is also hassle-free, as the burden lies upon the shoulder of the service provider. Additionally, offsite backup solutions provide excellent accessibility of data through interconnected devices from with in various locations. The need for offsite data backup include the consolidation of backup operations, cost savings, and most importantly, disaster recovery.

Offsite data backup is usually performed by one of the following two ways:

  1. Physical Transfer: This involves copying files onto a removable hard drive and storing it in another location. Various sizes of data could be transported to the offsite location daily, or weekly or at any other intervals, based on the needs of the company.
  2. Automated Remote Cloud Backup: This is a 21st-century technology, which improved the manual transportation of files to an offsite location. All applications and data are backed up automatically as they are being processed, and stored on servers that are located offsite, in some cases in another country or continent. This type of backup is also known as remote backup, online backup or cloud backup.

Backup Operations Consolidation:

Organisations that are geographically dispersed may use automated offsite data backup solutions to backup their data to a central location, instead of making every branch maintain their backups on site. For this, backups will be created through WAN from one branch to another and transferred through the network to a central location. Enterprises will also be able to manage a higher degree of corporate control over its backup policies.

Cost Savings:

Depending upon the backup requirement of the enterprise and the situation within its production facilities, securing data to an offsite locations may be more cost-effective than that of creating data backup onsite. will be helpful in making efficient use of IT resources.

Disaster Recovery:

Recovery from disaster is critical. The main reason why one performs backups is to recover data in case of accidental deletion, corruption, natural disaster, and other factors that may cause data loss. If backups are properly done, recovery of data or applications become easier and effective whenever disaster strikes.

Offsite Backup

Advantages of Offsite Data Backup:

Most organisations choose Cloud backup solution for offsite backups. Organisations find cloud based automated backups to not only be easy, but also hassle-free, with just set it and forget it approach.

As the most chosen method of backing up, cloud backup provides the following advantages:


Reduced Workload:
 Up until cloud backup technology was introduced, data backup was performed by a designated IT person, who would copy or manually create a backup for data and files. This was time-consuming and required staff to spend additional working hours into their work schedule just to handle the backups. However, modern day cloud backups can be created with a couple of clicks, and can be scheduled to run the backup jobs when you are away, making the data recovery a breeze.

  • Reliable: Automation is the greatest advantage of remote based cloud data backup. Files and folders are updated regularly or time can be set for the task. Since, all backups are created over the cloud, it can be recovered easily and quickly. Additionally, servers through which data can be accessed can be set up in geographically dispersed locations, which ensure that backed up data is available and accessible even if a server crashes.
  • Secure: Cloud backup service providers place their servers in secure locations, which means that data is secure physically. Advanced encryption tools are orchestrated into the system, which will help in keeping data transfersecure in the cloud.
  • Easy Setup: Data backup companies are the specialists in the field, and knowledgeable staff run the system in the background, making sure that the backup jobs are done as scheduled. Backup solutions can be setup with a few clicks, assuring that data is backed up instantly.
  • Money Saved: For larger organisations, where there are various end-point devices, with a huge amount of data that needs to be backed up on a regular basis, storage media could get very expensive. Cloud storagesolutions are billed on a monthly basis, and provide nearly unlimited storage space, but charge you on a pay-as-you-go basis plan. Companies with a huge amount of files and applications to be backed up, and those with mandatory data backup requirements will definitely find cloud backups to be a good option to save some money.

Exponential Data Growth and Storage Space:

As the need to store data increases, the challenge of storage space increases, which arises the need for optimising and managing data protection processes. Enterprises may come to realise that data they have may not just fit in one tape or hard drive. Additionally, employees may forget to change storage device every day. This is the time when a fully automated backup solution becomes essential for businesses. Most organisations consider offsite data backup to be the solution of the problem. A reliable and secure data protection solution is essential for a disaster recovery plan. No matter what the size of your storage that needs to be backed up is, offsite data backup solutions allow maintaining a current backup of data at a distant, safe and secure remote facility.

What are the merits of offiste backup

How Offsite Backup Works?

Special applications designed for backup solutions are installed at the servers. These applications compress and then encrypt the data before transmitting it through the Internet to the offsite data storage facility. All the data is backed up when servers are running. This way, for the organisation using this solution, the cost associated with servers or with application downtime is reduced. Moreover, special application agents provide the opportunity for real-time backup of SQL, Exchange as well as other databases. The moment data is transferred to the storage vault, it is safely and securely stored. Also, the data remain encrypted until it is restored on the computer of the client. Only those who have the password to that vault will be able to access the backed up data.

Conclusion:

So, should you use offsite backup to mitigate against data loss? Up till now, it has been very common that creating backups is an essential data security practise and many organisations are creating offsite backups, which are automated, and cloud based. Advanced technology and new paradigms, like object storage services and cloud-based backups, allow safe and secure data backups. With online data backup solution, both individuals and businesses are able to safely and securely create data backup at a remote facility almost instantly. Your data is very valuable. Never take a chance when the question is about security and privacy of data. Offsite backup solutions are effective in maintaining data security, as all valuable business data is saved at a remote facility, encrypted so that disaster recovery plans do not fail.

Deep Blue Backup urges you look into cloud based data backup solutions for your business and extends its hand to bring you up to speed on the subject. Contact us today.

There are various reasons that support maintaining copies of files and applications over the cloud. You will find that there are many software applications available for this. The key here is, however, not to select the wrong application that does not meet your requirements to protect your data. The first step is to determine which option will best suit your requirements. Remember to not make the mistake of thinking cloud storage and cloud backup to be the same thing. Understanding the basic difference between cloud storage and cloud backup is the most important step in finding the best cloud storage uk or cloud backup storage solutions.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage serves as a medium of extra or supplemental storage on the Internet. Its purpose is to preserve data, files, folders and applications so as to free up space at local storage devices or mirror local data or make access easy from different devices. Moreover, cloud storage also facilitates the secure sharing of files and data with other user on the Internet.

Data uploaded to cloud storage is specifically selected by the user and constitutes as a subset of the collection of data and files on the mobile devices or computer of the user. Files can be uploaded over a one-off basis on the cloud and can be downloaded whenever required. On the other side, data can be synced so that every file, which is edited in your computer, is automatically synced on the cloud storage server.

Cloud storage services provide the flexibility of accessing data at any time and from anywhere for a monthly fee. Cloud storage service providers may also limit the size of the file or the amount of data that can be stored on their servers based on the SLA. Examples of cloud storage service providers include: Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Amazon, OneDrive, Wasabi, and many others.

Cloud Storage Syncing and Sharing:

Sync is an abbreviation for synchronisation. It is a feature of cloud storage, which allows file editing over a device. These edits will be reflected on other devices that are synced in the cloud. The basic mechanism that is used by most cloud service providers is to provide a ‘sync folder’. This folder appears to be pretty much like any folder on your hard drives; however, the files that are stored in this folder are automatically saved both on the cloud and in your drive. This folder will be mirrored across every device that is connected with that specific cloud storage account.

Merits of Offsite Backups

File on Drive and in the Cloud

One issue with sync is that since it saves data on the cloud and also in your drive. This basically defeats the primary purpose of cloud storage, which is to supplement of your local hard drive. To handle this situation, some cloud storage service providers offer either spate folder which does not synchronise data or content and allows the user to turn off the sync feature.  This is suitable for those who do not want to keep synched data both on their hard drive and in the cloud.

File sharing allows others to view, edit as well as download files that are uploaded on the cloud storage. The mechanism underlying cloud storage file sharing is to create a URL of that file or folder which can be shared.

Cloud Backup

Cloud backup (also known as Online Backup) is used for storing a huge amount of files and applications. It is an automated process, a set-it-and-forget it approach. Consumer focused solutions charge very low monthly fee and usually come with no phone support. Once you are set up with a cloud backup service provider, your data gets backed up, as per the frequency of your choice, efficiently and quickly.

Data that has been transferred to cloud backup space is not intended to be accessed on a regular basis, as is the case with cloud storage. Backed up data is useless without recovery and the best thing about cloud backup is that you can recover your files, data, and applications easily, in case of any data loss, physical damage, corruption, malware or virus in your operating system.

The Merits of Offsite Backups

Which Service You Should Use?

It is imperative that a business requires some type of data backup. No matter which service you use, having an offsite backup of data is essential which offers protection in case data is lost from your local backup, stolen or destroyed.

If your business requires easy access to every file from different devices and computers, sharing files with other people or you lack hard drive storage space for larger files, cloud storage service may serve as the best option for you.

Many UK based enterprises use cloud storage UK services as a backup tool. An issue confronting cloud storage service as a backup tool is that it can not stop human error. In case a file is accidentally deleted from the cloud space, it is very hard to get it recovered. Some service providers are offering a failsafe option, which allows users to recover accidentally deleted files; however, this may not be offered by all service providers.

Secure Cloud Backup

Collaborative cloud services, as well as sharing of files, may not be suitable for a secure cloud backup service because of the fact that many users can access those files making the option less secure.

If your requirement is to protect data, a proper cloud backup service is the ultimate option. There are several cloud backup service providers and you have to carefully determine which service provider offers the highest quality service and which is worth the money spent.

Most bigger corporations with a huge number of employees have the need to assure that corporate data is secure and backed up, may need both cloud storage and cloud backup services. Cloud storage service will make it easy to access files from anywhere and create an effortless collaboration amongst the employees. On the other hand, cloud backup service which assures that all data is backed up, safe and secure from any type of corruption or accidental deletion.

In Summary – The merits of offsite backup.

Cloud storage and cloud backup are services that are offered by cloud service providers. Both of the services provide a similar, yet different purposes. Prior to signing up for a cloud-based backup or storage service services, it is important to understand the difference between the two, and perhaps contact your vendor and request for a demo, and then determine which best suits your business requirements.

Although cloud storage is very easy to use, many times it is required to upload all files on the cloud in a specially designated folder. This may be effective when the need is to store a small number of files, however, it may not be possible to create a backup of everything on the operating unit.  On the other hand, cloud backup will not only sync but, will also upload every file or folder you have selected without the need to reorganise the files. Moreover, the files are also not required to be placed in particular folders so as to get them backed up on the cloud.