Cloud based solutions bring disaster recovery within reach of small business

Backup and Data Recovery (BDR) solutions traditionally have been high priced luxuries out of the reach of many small to medium business owners. Tape drives remain very expensive hardware components, and offsite storage services are simply too expensive for many companies to use. But now, cloud based solutions are poised to bring BDR solutions within reach of every business from the sole proprietorship to the multisite enterprise.

Let’s look at what a company needs for BDR. Data must be securely backed up, available in case of need, but safe from any disaster that might strike the company. When all of your data resides only on your fileserver, it is at risk from hardware failures, theft, human error, fire or other catastrophe. Many companies use tapes to back up their systems, but do not use a reliable way to move those tapes off site to a secure storage location. The same fire that cooks your server will melt the tapes in the file cabinet, and so will the summer sun beating down on the car’s boot.

Even the least expensive courier services can cost hundreds of dollars a month, and relying on tapes to store your data means needing redundant hardware to recover your data in an emergency. Tape based solutions are simply out of reach for most SMBs, who choose instead to accept the risk of loss because they don’t have a viable solution. Or rather, they didn’t until BDR met the cloud.

Cloud based BDR solutions use your company’s Internet circuit to make a secure connection to your service provider’s network, and performs data back ups continuously. Typically an agent is installed on each server and workstation you wish to backup, and examines data changes at the block level, replicating data either directly to the cloud service provider, or to a staging appliance in your datacenter that can further compress the data, and stage most recently changed data for rapid restores if necessary.

Rather than investing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on hardware and software, cloud based BDR solutions typically operate on a monthly subscription basis, with graduated pricing based on total data stored. This means that SMBs can start using the services immediately, and keep their costs manageable. They can select a smaller total data level to start, and raise the level as their needs grow. Because costs are monthly and subscription based, the financial treatment of these costs is frequently very attractive as well, going to operations rather than assets.

Many of the cloud based providers of BDR services offer free trials, which enables the business owner or IT admin to take the service for a test ride, ensuring that they are comfortable with the requirements, performance, and availability of the service. Some services can offer individual users with backup capabilities for their workstations that go hand in hand with server based backups, while others pool team based storage to further enhance the services available.

With your data securely backed up to a cloud provider’s network, you can rest easy knowing that if disaster strikes, your data is not lost. It is safe and secure in the cloud ready for you to pull down at need.

This guest post was written by Casper Manes on behalf of IT Channel Insight, a site for MSPs and Channel partners where you can find other related articles to disaster recovery.

Cloud service providers and the U.S. PATRIOT Act

The U.S. PATRIOT Act has a lot of non-U.S. companies wondering whether it is a sound practice to store data in a U.S. based cloud services organization. The concern is this: the cloud services provider may be obligated to turn over stored data on receipt of a National Security Letter, which is essentially a subpoena with a gag order.

But what if the customer is the legal owner of the data, and not the cloud services provider?

If legal contracts between the cloud services provider and its customers define customers as the owner of stored data, what happens when the cloud services provider receives a National Security Letter asking for that data? Can the provider say, “sorry – this is not our data, you need to ask the owner for it”?

I could see this going both ways.  Using the precedent of wiretapping, the law enforcement agency issuing the subpoena might argue that data ownership is irrelevant.

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While we’re on the topic of PATRIOT… I often wonder about non-U.S. companies’ concern about it. Rationale I sometimes hear is that storing data in the U.S. is riskier because of PATRIOT.

Let me assert this: in the interest of national security, any nation’s law enforcement or intelligence agencies are going to search and sieze data as needed, whether there are laws on the books or not. The fact that the U.S. has its PATRIOT Act only means that the U.S. is being more transparent about a practice that we all know is pervasive around the world. Taking this argument further, you could argue that storing data in the U.S. is safer, because at least the U.S. has laws governing the use of search and seizure in the name of national security. In countries without such laws, what will limit the reach of law enforcement and intelligence agencies?

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Finally, I want to say that I am not expressing an opinion about PATRIOT – whether I agree with it or not. It is simply a fact to be dealt with.

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References:

The Patriot Act and your data: Should you ask cloud providers about protection? – InfoWorld article, January 2012.

Patriot Act Threatens American Cloud Computing – Wall Street Cheat Sheet, January 2012.