The E-Backup story every business owner should read

Learning from the mistakes of others
A costly error by Abacore & Armstrong

The consulting company, Abacore & Armstrong, had a disk drive crash six months after it began operations. And, even with a fully backed up system on a tape drive, it took over five days to get the critical computer system restored. Abacore & Armstrong spent several months investigating all the alternatives to manual backup systems. Finally, they determined that the best backup systems are the ones used by Fortune 500 companies (like IBM, GE, and Amoco). These backup systems are completely tapeless.

Most fortune 500 companies use the same basic techniques to protect their data:

All their systems are completely automated.

The data is copied to a central offsite location

Highly skilled technicians implement and monitor the process.

Abacore & Armstrong then spent several months searching for the right hardware and software to enable this backup system. In the middle of 1999, Quantum Tech, a leading backup software company, released a remote online backup system that would allow Abacore & Armstrong to set up a centralized backup server so that its customers could lease a highly effective backup system with no overhead.

• All files are protected by state of the art encryption; only the customer can retrieve their files
• Completely automated off-site protection
• Fast online recovery of any version of any protected file
• Easy installation and setup
• Only an internet connection is required, eliminating the need for expensive backup equipment and media
• The backup server is monitored by highly skilled technicians whose only job is to make sure the backups are performed properly

We operate an off-site storage facility for the user's data. At the facility, an account is maintained for each user. Each account is protected by a password known only to the user to ensure confidentiality.

The electronic vault system is set up so that at a specific time, usually late at night, the clients computer automatically "wakes up" and prepares its data for backup. It determines which files have been modified since the last backup, compresses them, encrypts them for security, and sends them to the off-site location for backup. This is done via the Internet. When the data is ready, the computer uses its modem, or Internet connection, to contact our servers and transmit the data.

Our servers verify and store the data. The next morning the backup is transferred to a removable media and placed in a fireproof safe for permanent safe keeping. Customers can rest assured that their data is safe, because it is stored off-site.