Modern-Day Online Backup – Data Intensive Solutions for Growing Businesses

No matter what you may have learned in business school, all owners of small to medium businesses (or SMBs) sooner or later come to find out that the on the job training of actually owning an expanding enterprise is the most intense education that one could possibly ever receive on the subject. For example, as your business continues to grow, the amount of data that it owns will also grow, with the critical nature of said data often becoming more and more obvious in the process. That’s where many owners of SMBs come to realize the importance of data intensive online backup solutions to protect their growing companies from catastrophic data loss.

Luckily for SMBs everywhere, signing up for online data backup services has never been easier, or indeed less expensive. After choosing which service your company is going to utilize for this purpose, all it takes nowadays is to log onto the online backup service provider’s website and then, in turn, decide which sort of coverage your company requires, with most online backup service providers featuring “pay-as-you-go” pricing models that allow the customer to pay only for the space that they need. After that, the user must simply download and install a very lightweight software program, also called a ‘client’, to whichever computers contain valuable files that need to be backed up, so that all the company’s machines will be protected from data loss. Once the client is installed it then scans the files and configures which ones will be continuously (or at scheduled times) backed up to the online backup company’s servers.

However, the ease and efficiency that modern-day online backup affords the companies it protects does not end there. Most online backup service companies now provide data de-duplication techniques that make it so that the amount of space that your backed up files take up on their servers is kept to a minimum, effectively lowering storage costs while simultaneously cutting down on the time it takes for the data in question to be backed up in the first place. Furthermore, a variety of new, more advanced levels of data encryption serve to further ensure those backing up their company’s data online that their valuable files will be totally inaccessible to anyone outside of their company, both during transmission and while stored on the online backup company’s secure servers.

However, the flip-side of this is also true; another important advantage brought about by backing up online is making sure your company’s data is as accessible as possible to others outside your company with whom you wish to collaborate or share files with. This includes being able retrieve, modify and re-save files from multiple off-site locations, using either the aforementioned client software, or a browser-based interface that enables specific users to access certain files without being signed up with the online backup service provider at all. Companies that utilize their online backup in this way can rest assured that their data will not fall into the wrong hands in the process, knowing that whomever they deem worthy to access their data must be thoroughly authenticated before they gain permission to do so. In addition to this, your company will also be able to keep track of who has accessed or modified any file using easy-to-read activity logs provided by the online backup client software.

Yet another advantage to using data intensive online backup services is the ease with which one can find and retrieve a file from the remote backup server. Indeed, once your data is backed up, online backup companies can be used as a virtual search engine for your company’s data, with metadata and other indexing methods being created automatically as you back up, making the finding of any file now easier than ever before. And, where years ago many online data backup services only featured scheduled backups of your company’s data, modern-day technology has brought about advanced features like KineticD’s patented Continuous Backup System that ensures that the copy we have of your company’s data is always up-to-date.

In fact, in the event of any type of data loss, your company’s files can often be almost automatically recovered using a simple cleanup wizard provided by the backup client. Once the client notices that there are files on the backup company’s servers that have gone missing from the local machines being backed up, all it usually takes is just a few clicks of the mouse to have the file automatically restored to the local computer’s hard drive. In addition to this, many online backup companies can provide a service called ‘bare metal restore’ in which, in the case where a hard drive has simply crashed, the entire contents of the dead hard drive, from the operating system up, can be copied right onto a new piece of hardware, effectively saving your company from having to waste any of its precious time reinstalling programs and operating systems before being able to retrieve their important files (not to mention, of course, avoiding the staggering costs of data recovery services!).

So, there you have it; while backing up online helps your company keep its data safe and sound, it now also brings about scores of additional conveniences from file sharing to advanced search techniques. We here at KineticD pride ourselves on providing one of the most advanced data intensive online backup platforms around, allowing for continuous data backup and file sharing from any number of computers (or other mobile devices for that matter, from smart phones to iPads), advanced file versioning techniques and much more.