Online Backup solutions

[ProTech-MN]

How much does it cost?

You'll have to contact Intronis for pricing info, but I can tell you that you purchase storage in blocks (i.e. 250GB, 500GB, etc). Rates are based on how much storage you purchase.

Intronis is going to be a bit more expensive than some of the straight online backup solutions (Logmein, Mozy, Carbonite, etc.), but with Intronis, you're selling a managed online backup service - keep that in mind.

-Randy

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Since this is a Older Thread does anyoneone have any new thoughts on Online Backup reseller options.

Thanks

We split things up, based on the client and their needs.
For small networks, peer to peers, "cheaper" clients...we use Jungledisk. Very cheap cost per gig for you...VERY cheap. Easy client to install, management isn't bad. Wish they did have a daily e-mail sent to clients..so far only sends to you. But hey, for the cost.

For what I'll call "medium" clients...with fancier needs, we use Intronis. Sorta weird client, and how you set it up. But works fairly reliably, and Intronis support is very good ..even the online chat. Naggy sales people...always calling to have you bump up your package (but at least she is cute sounding). One thing though, the storage that you use does "bloat". We prefer selling it in blocks...and even when you give it headroom, say you have a client with 37 gigs of data, you sell them a 50 gig plan..it works well for a few months, but 6 or 9 months down the road and you'll find the space they use up online easily surpasses what you sold...and Intronis is charging you for that space. Their algorithms don't work well for managing the accumulation up there in their data centers. So remember...start estimating at least double what you hope to back up.

For higher end clients that need fast disaster recover, I'm very impressed with the DattoBackup product. A local appliance gets placed in the clients server room. It makes hot backups of your clients servers in VMWare format..and stores them on the local appliance. If the clients server goes up in smoke...you can "boot up" that backup image on the appliance. Several different servers even, at once..and get them up and running. That appliance also mirrors to the cloud for offsite, and...if a big disaster hits, you can "boot up" those offsite cloud backups in their data center, customize a VPN to your clients, or remote desktop, and get up and running quickly. Slick deal for healthcare and other clients that need to get "back up and running" even if a flood or tornado takes out their office.

 

[BDNTech]

Encryption is definitely something to be wary about when considering an online backup provider. You hit the nail on the head. Most online backup providers will encrypt the data for transmission but send the encryption key along with it, pointless. Obviously this prohibits the types of clients that can use this service to anyone that doesn't really their data encrypted. Regulatory compliance issues like Hipaa, sox or glba, and even PCI are not met, leaving those businesses and the resellers that set them up open to a whole slew of fines or worse.
It is for this reason that we have our clients & resellers choose their own encryption key and that key is never sent to the data centers. That way we are able to maintain compliance and be a viable solution for medical practices or any business that use credit cards or buisnesses that might have to adhere to stricter regulations like Hipaa, Sox, & GLBA.
Hope this helps.

 

[allstarit]

For larger clients who have alot of data i recomend StorageCraft Shadow Protect.

We sell this to clients along with a local NAS box to save a full base image and hourly incrementals. There is the shadow protect license for the software on the server and then we use shadow protect image manager to collapse the incrementals into a daily backup which is then sent offsite using Storagecraft Shadow Stream. This sends the incrementals to a server we have in a datacentre. Best part about shadowprotect is you can restore files individually or for more serious issues you can restore the entire image. Another good feature is the ability to virtually boot the server.

All the licenses provide a steady income and we package it altogether with a monthly fee to end user.

For home users i have been using crashplan and sending data to same server in datacentre.

 

[Nexgenappliances]

eFolder is a great product. A little pricey, but great software, service and support. Pay for the branding!

Other reseller solutions: Mozy Enterprise, iBackup, Jungle Disk (new biz features!).

I have used efolder + shadow protect in the past with excellent results. You can make a preload drive using shadow protect and a usb hard drive for large pools of data. Ship the preload to efolder and once the preload has been established on their servers, you send the shadow protect incremental backups over the wire.

Using this combo gives you two advantages. First, shadow protect is an amazing onsite backup and recovery tool. So much easier and friendlier than backup exec. Plus, its image based, so you can restore files and folders, as well as entire servers in a bare metal restore scenario. Plus, you can turn the shadow protect backups into VM's and play them in virtual box or vmware.

Second, using efolder to ship the shadow protect images offsite means that you not only have file level backups safe for a DR scenario, but you have a full blown server image you can restore to bare metal or a VM. If the building burns down, you can spin the server up offsite in a data center as a vm if necessary.

 

[allstarit]

hey Nexgenappliances have you looked into Shadow Stream and Image Manager?

If your using shadowprotect you should take a look. Basically you buy shadowstream licenses and this gets added to Image Manager.

Image Manager consolidates the backups and also preforms verification of backups. Its free but only usefull if you have shadowprotect.
In Image Manger you setup an Agent which points to your ShadowStream Server.

Then on your desitination server or where ever your offsite backups are going you install Shadow Stream Admin Console and for every client you need a shadowstream license. The shadowstream uses smart packet sequencing which makes it send over numerous ports and works well on most internet connections.

Also if you have all of that then get yourself ShadowCMD Control which monitors all your clients Shadow Protects along with server issues like high ram usage, low diskspace, critical services stopping.

We have about 45 backups going on it at the moment and its really good.