What is Internet Backup?
A Backup Article Contributed by Melissa Larose
What is Internet Backup?
If you are Internet ready then you are Internet backup ready. All it takes is the ability to connect and you can choose from hundreds of available Internet backup sites. There are huge amounts of disk space available on the Internet, terabytes in fact, just waiting for data to store. Using this type of backup can give you an extra layer of protection against data loss. Data loss can occur for many reasons and can happen at any time. Using an Internet backup service can give you added security when it comes to valuable data.
Internet Backup Means No Extra Hardware
You could choose to purchase your own Internet backup site, purchase the space, buy the servers, install security for the space and hire someone to man it for you, but most businesses don't make the kind of revenue from their data to warrant this type of installation.
With an Internet backup service plan you are usually given the software to make your downloads possible and easy. You pay a minimal amount of money to rent the space, security, hardware, and manpower to run the service. Sounds a lot easier than doing it yourself, doesn't it?
Shopping for Internet Backup Sites
Researching and shopping for an Internet Backup service site can be tedious simply because of the number of sites available. To shore up this process use some common sense right up front. What are you looking for? What do you need in terms of an alternative location for data safety? What size of data are you looking at storing and how does that data grow? What will it take for you to feel good about moving your data to an off-site location?
It is important to know the details of your data before you choose to use Internet backup as an alternative backup source. Many businesses tend to forget that their data is their business. Losing or corrupting the data can lead to business failure if you have not installed some varying levels of protection. Knowing what your data and customers can stand before failure is a good business practice and not something you want to find out on the fly when you cannot do a thing to change the result.
The Process of Internet Backup
The process of an Internet backup is fairly easy to implement and is not much different than a regular backup. The only real difference is that you are sending your data across the web and depositing it on to another server in a location far, far away.
Most Internet backup services will provide you with a software package that will help you manage your backup. The most difficult part of making these backups is the up-front process of creating your settings and choosing your preferences. Part of this process is deciding what gets put into backup, when the backup needs to occur and who is going to be responsible for the process.
Most importantly your backup data needs to stay secured through the whole process. Ask for and expect authentication in the login process and encryption before the download even begins. And always, always protect your encryption keys.
