Agentless Backup Technology

ROBOBAK Online Data Backup Expert Tips: Agentless Backup Technology

The debate rages on. Which backup architecture makes the most sense, agentless or agent based. While there is much to be said for both technologies, we must consider the pros and cons of both.

Agentless architecture was designed with scalable manageability in mind. The architecture requires the install of only one backup agent on a selected machine and through one centrally managed console all networked machines can then be backed up. Communication is established using communication protocols such as FTP, CIFS/SMB, Telnet or SSh.

In order to connect agentlessly to a networked machine, the proper administrative authentication is required. While agent based architectures can be authenticated with a local system account, agentless architecture requires that the target machine be setup with a username and password that is authenticated to accept network connections. Every backup is monitored, managed and routed through the centrally administered console.

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) that offer agentless backup technologies are appealing to end customers because they usually have a very simple pricing model. These MSPs don’t typically charge a device, agent or bandwidth fee and instead determine your price based on the actual stored amount of data that resides in their cloud.

Agentless backup architecture also offers benefits to MSPs that want to launch their own private vaults. One of the most important benefits of this architecture is a simplified licensing model. Take ROBOBAK, an agentless based backup solution, licensing model as an example. ROBOBAK’s licensing model is based on a compressed / de-duplicated storage limit. Meaning, with ROBOBAK, a client could backup any number of machines through one centrally administrated backup console on the network, without having to worry about additional licenses or permissions from the software vendor.

Agentless architecture supports almost all operating systems, databases and email formats that are in use today. Features such as hot database backup, mailbox level restore, and open file backup can be set up to run continuously or as a predefined schedule. All backups using ROBOBAK are based on THIN incremental or differential technology and allow the user to keep both local and remote copies of their data.

Some of the benefits of agentless backups include:

1. Centralized administration
2. Simple pricing and licensing models
3. Install the agent as many times as you wish (no limits or device fees)
4. Support for a large range of operating systems, databases and email formats
5. Local and remote backup capabilities