Online Backup

[sedigital]

Got a two part question here...

1. Just curious how you guys setup your online backup agreements when using a third party solution for online backup?

2. I'm really concerned about using a third party solution as it appears most data centers are in the US, meaning that a government agency can raid a data center at any point (if there's suspicious activity). Has anyone here setup their own online backup solution from scratch?

 

[cprompt]

My understanding is that if the data is encrypted before leaving your machine, and your provider does not have the encryption key, then even if the data center is raided (either by the government or any other hacker), it won't do them any good. As such, I'm fairly comfortable using an online solution. So, no I have not set up my own online backup system from scratch.

Now if I'm mistaken about this, I hope someone lets me know!

Brian.

 

[Velvis]

2. I'm really concerned about using a third party solution as it appears most data centers are in the US, meaning that a government agency can raid a data center at any point (if there's suspicious activity). Has anyone here setup their own online backup solution from scratch?

You are so concerned that the government can snoop into your clients data, that you would want to design, setup, maintain, and ultimately be 100% reliable for (flood,fire, hardware failure, equipment being stolen, etc) all of their business data?

Nevermind trying to make a profit went Carbonite and others are dirt cheap and have redundacy and the infrastructure built in to run specifically an online backup service for businesses....

I'll take government ability to snoop any day of the week.

 

[Knightsman]

Got a two part question here...

1. Just curious how you guys setup your online backup agreements when using a third party solution for online backup?

2. I'm really concerned about using a third party solution as it appears most data centers are in the US, meaning that a government agency can raid a data center at any point (if there's suspicious activity). Has anyone here setup their own online backup solution from scratch?

I have I use logmein backup, I backup straight to my servers. Some people here will tell you its a huge risk. But its really not.
Part of you agreement with setting up your own backup needs to be that they are also backing up onsite, to an external or NAS.

You also need to have a desktop/server at another location setup to be able to receive the backups in case your power goes out.
Its super easy, and a license is only $30 year for logmein per computer, and I sell it for $60 year. And yes I make a profit on it.

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[Knightsman]

My understanding is that if the data is encrypted before leaving your machine, and your provider does not have the encryption key, then even if the data center is raided (either by the government or any other hacker), it won't do them any good. As such, I'm fairly comfortable using an online solution. So, no I have not set up my own online backup system from scratch.

Now if I'm mistaken about this, I hope someone lets me know!

Brian.

Most of the companies have a master decryption key in case they do get a court order. For example code42 (crashplan). I have an encryption key on my computer set, but I can login to their website with just my password and I can see and download my files. Which makes it obvious to me its either decrypted on their servers once its received or when i log in. If that makes sense.

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[4ycr]

I know that nine tech say this. that as they do not know the encryption key they have no access to your files.

 

[rjframe]

If the government wants the data, then they'll get it whether it's encrypted or not. It just depends on the strength of the encryption / length of the key and how much effort they're willing to put into it.


I haven't seen question 1 answered and am curious to this as well - specifically, do you prefer charging per GB used or sell in larger blocks?

 

[Knightsman]

I sell a flat rate of 60 unlimited space

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[sedigital]

The other big benefit that I see with being able to do this is to be able to take the customers backup off of the server, throw it on a USB drive and do a restore at their site.

As for the questions about liability, ask your lawyer. I think that if you're selling the backup to your customer (whether or whether not you're actually hosting it), you're likely assuming liability for any loss or compromise of their data.

The other issue I see in a lot of these companies having a master decryption code is what happens if a staff member loses a gasket and causes some serious damage? Or what if that key isn't properly protected and some hacker gains access because he's upset at that company? It's still YOUR liability if the customer is paying YOU.

I've played a bit with FTP backups, but the problem is that these don't seem to be incremental.

If anyone has setup their own online backup solution that does incremental online backups, I would love to chat with you and hear what you did.

 

[Knightsman]

The other big benefit that I see with being able to do this is to be able to take the customers backup off of the server, throw it on a USB drive and do a restore at their site.

As for the questions about liability, ask your lawyer. I think that if you're selling the backup to your customer (whether or whether not you're actually hosting it), you're likely assuming liability for any loss or compromise of their data.

The other issue I see in a lot of these companies having a master decryption code is what happens if a staff member loses a gasket and causes some serious damage? Or what if that key isn't properly protected and some hacker gains access because he's upset at that company? It's still YOUR liability if the customer is paying YOU.

I've played a bit with FTP backups, but the problem is that these don't seem to be incremental.

If anyone has setup their own online backup solution that does incremental online backups, I would love to chat with you and hear what you did.

To answer the liability of data loss, in your terms and conditions you must put in there that you are not responsible for data loss. That they agree it is still their responsibility to make sure local backups are being ran.
Which the software I use does both, locally to their external, and to my server. I will not backup someone unless they backup locally as well.

As far as data being compromised. I don't know my customers encryption keys, and I don't have a master decryption key. That's the beauty of using 3rd party software, they may have the master key (3rd party), but they have NO access to the files..

Half of my customers don't care about an encryption key.

But to this point, we use bitlocker, truecrypt, bios and hd passwords, just in case someone ever breaks in and steals the equipment. Which is bolted to a bench.

FTP backups typically are not secure. We played with this also.

Just had my biggest sell, a 4 year subscription, he has 500GB of data.

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[djaburg]

If you're selling your backup solution for $60/yr and half of that is software license, that gives you $30/yr profit. How many clients would you have to maintain to offset the cost of hardware, electricity, and internet bandwidth? Perhaps I'm over simplifying it, but it doesn't really seem like the risk/reward makes it viable. Odd too that they would sign a disclaimer saying that you're not liable for data loss. Then what are they paying for? So if your area is hit by a large storm, your clients servers and local backup are destroyed and your backup servers along with their data is destroyed, they have no recourse? They're just out of luck? Seems odd to me. Perhaps I'm missing something. You don't think they'd have any legal recourse against you?

 

[Knightsman]

If you're selling your backup solution for $60/yr and half of that is software license, that gives you $30/yr profit. How many clients would you have to maintain to offset the cost of hardware, electricity, and internet bandwidth? Perhaps I'm over simplifying it, but it doesn't really seem like the risk/reward makes it viable. Odd too that they would sign a disclaimer saying that you're not liable for data loss. Then what are they paying for? So if your area is hit by a large storm, your clients servers and local backup are destroyed and your backup servers along with their data is destroyed, they have no recourse? They're just out of luck? Seems odd to me. Perhaps I'm missing something. You don't think they'd have any legal recourse against you?

Understandable points, I didn't break down everything on this. There is another thread I started on backups that breaks down my pricing.

I use my file server anyway
I have to have internet anyways

So electricity doesn't matter because it really doesn't use that much, compared to what I use on a day to day basis anyways.
My bandwidth is unlimited, its not like I have hundreds of clients to backup..

And it would be pretty dumb of me not to have a backup right? A backup of the very service im selling? I have servers at different locations, and I backup to the ever wonderful cloud.

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[YeOldeStonecat]

If you're selling your backup solution for $60/yr and half of that is software license, that gives you $30/yr profit. How many clients would you have to maintain to offset the cost of hardware, electricity, and internet bandwidth? Perhaps I'm over simplifying it, but it doesn't really seem like the risk/reward makes it viable. Odd too that they would sign a disclaimer saying that you're not liable for data loss. Then what are they paying for? So if your area is hit by a large storm, your clients servers and local backup are destroyed and your backup servers along with their data is destroyed, they have no recourse? They're just out of luck? Seems odd to me. Perhaps I'm missing something. You don't think they'd have any legal recourse against you?

30 bucks per year per client..I can't see how you'd ever break even. I'd want close to 30 bucks per client PER MONTH profit.

When we wanted to start doing "offsite backups" for our clients...we did a "host your own" solution. We purchased a software package...spent a couple of grand on that. And then the hardware....and a NAS appliance....and then increase the internet pipe...to handle the heavier loads...and to do it right, get another internet connection of a different type from a different ISP for better failover. And to really do it right...generator backup..cuz just because your building loses power...the clients shouldn't suffer. And to do it right..should have multiple locations so you can have failover by sites.

Sooo...unless you're doing it really really large scale, true clustered server type spread around multiple data centers...it's really not profitable.

 

[Knightsman]

30 bucks per year per client..I can't see how you'd ever break even. I'd want close to 30 bucks per client PER MONTH profit.

When we wanted to start doing "offsite backups" for our clients...we did a "host your own" solution. We purchased a software package...spent a couple of grand on that. And then the hardware....and a NAS appliance....and then increase the internet pipe...to handle the heavier loads...and to do it right, get another internet connection of a different type from a different ISP for better failover. And to really do it right...generator backup..cuz just because your building loses power...the clients shouldn't suffer. And to do it right..should have multiple locations so you can have failover by sites.

Sooo...unless you're doing it really really large scale, true clustered server type spread around multiple data centers...it's really not profitable.

Its totally profitable for me.... Please explain how its not, and break it down for me? The only thing that is even close to being annoying is hard drive prices, which don't matter yet because I still have space.

At the same time, im not trying to make money with it. tried that, the area im in, they see carbonite, and say no to my services. they don't care if its personalized, they care about the price for some reason. But that's my area, we do small business clients, not big.

For us its better peace of mind, because we are making money from them in other ways which include monthly maintenance, antivirus, etc. It sure is a lot easier if we control the data and the case of a power failure.


But why spend a couple of grand on software that you dont know would work. We researched for over a year before finally settling down on logmein backup. On our low storage clients we are thinking of using IASO backup, its only .30 per gb. stored on your servers.

There is no investment for us, because we already use our file server, we already use plenty of bandwidth...get what im saying? It cost us little to nothing to host my customers backups.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Its totally profitable for me.... Please explain how its not, and break it down for me? The only thing that is even close to being annoying is hard drive prices, which don't matter yet because I still have space.

At the same time, im not trying to make money with it. tried that, the area im in, they see carbonite, and say no to my services. they don't care if its personalized, they care about the price for some reason. But that's my area, we do small business clients, not big.

For us its better peace of mind, because we are making money from them in other ways which include monthly maintenance, antivirus, etc. It sure is a lot easier if we control the data and the case of a power failure.


But why spend a couple of grand on software that you dont know would work. We researched for over a year before finally settling down on logmein backup. On our low storage clients we are thinking of using IASO backup, its only .30 per gb. stored on your servers.

There is no investment for us, because we already use our file server, we already use plenty of bandwidth...get what im saying? It cost us little to nothing to host my customers backups.

I was looking for profit...while it's all "do good feel good" to do right by your clients...that's not what puts steak on my families dinner table...we're in this to make money first. You say..it's totally profitable for you...yet a few lines later you state you're not trying to make money with it..it's just for your piece of mind and control. You lost me there....are you making money, breaking even, or losing?

We started out with RBackup. We researched for a long time and tried many also...I never said the software didn't work..the software worked OK. We bought a server..just a medium powered 1U box...plus a NAS....4 TB to start out with..and we had to double after that. Another APC 1500. We already have many servers in our full sized cabinet...but I don't mix/match stuff, our servers for "client stuff" are always single purposed.

And to do it right....I mentioned a secondary internet pipe...and a generator. Did you do those? Do you have a secondary distant location for failover in case yours is offline? That's expensive! I would in no way offer this service on just 1 server...one internet connection, no backup power, no redundant offsite location for failover, no physically secured/alarmed server room.

I don't believe in trying to compete against "carbonite" 40 bucks/year stuff either...granted we do focus on business clients so our backups "per client" are usually large...often over 50 gigs per month, many in the hundreds of gigs per month, a few are about to cross a TB per month....so what we're after is well over a hundred bucks profit per month, not 10 dollars a month profit stuff. We do backups for some SOHO super tiny peer to peer clients of a couple of computers..and for those we use Jungledisk...it's .15 cents per gig..and the first 10 gigs are free. Using Rackspace servers..not ours. No package below 20 bucks per month..it's not worth the time to bill them and manage it for less than that. If a client won't pay that for us to "manage" their backups and make sure it's always working perfectly..they can go to mozy or carbonite and deal with horrid overseas support and no monitoring of it, we don't want them.

 

[Knightsman]

I was looking for profit...while it's all "do good feel good" to do right by your clients...that's not what puts steak on my families dinner table...we're in this to make money first. You say..it's totally profitable for you...yet a few lines later you state you're not trying to make money with it..it's just for your piece of mind and control. You lost me there....are you making money, breaking even, or losing?

We started out with RBackup. We researched for a long time and tried many also...I never said the software didn't work..the software worked OK. We bought a server..just a medium powered 1U box...plus a NAS....4 TB to start out with..and we had to double after that. Another APC 1500. We already have many servers in our full sized cabinet...but I don't mix/match stuff, our servers for "client stuff" are always single purposed.

And to do it right....I mentioned a secondary internet pipe...and a generator. Did you do those? Do you have a secondary distant location for failover in case yours is offline? That's expensive! I would in no way offer this service on just 1 server...one internet connection, no backup power, no redundant offsite location for failover, no physically secured/alarmed server room.

I don't believe in trying to compete against "carbonite" 40 bucks/year stuff either...granted we do focus on business clients so our backups "per client" are usually large...often over 50 gigs per month, many in the hundreds of gigs per month, a few are about to cross a TB per month....so what we're after is well over a hundred bucks profit per month, not 10 dollars a month profit stuff. We do backups for some SOHO super tiny peer to peer clients of a couple of computers..and for those we use Jungledisk...it's .15 cents per gig..and the first 10 gigs are free. Using Rackspace servers..not ours. No package below 20 bucks per month..it's not worth the time to bill them and manage it for less than that. If a client won't pay that for us to "manage" their backups and make sure it's always working perfectly..they can go to mozy or carbonite and deal with horrid overseas support and no monitoring of it, we don't want them.

Are you even reading my post? I've already answered most of your questions in my previous posts.

I don't know how I lost you with it being profitable. Backups for us is an add on, as I stated earlier we do work for small businesses, as you stated you even use a whole different system for. on average they backup between 4-6 gigs per month. My lowest backup set os 2gb, my max is 16gb. So big difference between my customers and yours.



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