E-Guide

Key considerations
for evaluating remote
backup services
How does one go about choosing the correct remote online backup
service provider? Assessing your organization's challenges, abilities and
assets will help you determine if deploying a cloud-based data backup
strategy is a better alternative than relying on an on-site data backup
and recovery strategy.

Download this guide to learn more about what you should be consider-
ing before choosing a remote online backup service provider.

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 Key considerations for evaluating remote backup services
Table of Contents

E-Guide

Key considerations for

evaluating remote backup
services
Table of Contents:

How to choose the best remote online backup service provider

Is a cloud data backup service right for your organization?

Resources from Venyu

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 Key considerations for evaluating remote backup services
How to choose the best remote online backup service provider

How to choose the best remote online backup service provider

By: W. Curtis Preston

Online data backups and backing up data to a remote online backup service provider can be a good way to back up
your data. If you choose a reliable and trustworthy service, you can send your data to their primary data center
and not worry about backing up your data. But how do you go about choosing the correct remote online backup
service provider? What common pitfalls do you need to look out for? And what are the differences in the services
these online backup providers offer?

W. Curtis Preston, executive editor at TechTarget and independent backup expert, discusses what you should con-
sider before choosing a remote online backup service provider in this Q&A. His answers are also available as an
MP3 below.

When is it a good idea for a company to back up their data online?

In terms of backing up data online vs. local backup -- I'd say the obvious question is: Is the company an appropri-
ate size for online data backups? Unless the company has a seating option, it needs have data in the double digits
of gigabytes, or maybe triple digits of gigabytes. But just realize that the first backup you do is going to take a long
time. If you're anything bigger than a few hundred gigabytes, then there are some companies that offer a seating
option where they ship you a drive. Once you receive the drive, you need to back up your data to that drive, and
then you ship them the drive and that gets that first backup done. I know when I first experimented with doing
online backup at home, it took me a few months to get my first backup done and I had a few hundred gigabytes of
data.

Your daily change rate should be something that's appropriate for online data backups. If you're creating tens of
gigabytes of data per day, and you need to back up that data every day, you're not going to have the bandwidth to
do that because you're using the internet to get to these systems. So first, make sure you have the right size com-
pany for online backup services. If your company is too big, then don't even think about it. Second, ask yourself if
you're a company that can benefit from online backup service providers. In this case, a company that would benefit
from online data backups is one that doesn't have a dedicated backup staff, which, when we talk about hundreds of
gigabytes of data, that's probably going to be everyone. If you fit these two requirements, then this is a great way
to pay a monthly bill and have data backups just magically happen. And if it doesn't happen for whatever reason,
someone will contact you. And then you can have whoever it is that addresses IT issues take care of that problem.

What key steps does a company need to take when choosing a remote online
backup service provider?

The first thing to do when choosing a remote online backup service provider is to make sure they support the plat-
form that you are backing up. You also need to establish your requirements, which include: how fast you want to
back up your data; how fast you want to restore your data; how frequently you want to restore your data; and how
much data you're willing to lose. Once you set out a list of requirements, this will create service-level agreements
(SLAs) for you. Keep in mind that some companies will agree to your SLAs and some will not agree to those that

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 Key considerations for evaluating remote backup services
How to choose the best remote online backup service provider

you lay out. Also, make sure that you're using the business side of their service, because otherwise you're not
going to get the same service.

After that, just do your homework and make sure you're checking out the financial viability of the firm; do your
best to verify that they are indeed doing their job and look for customer references -- all the same stuff that you do
with anything else in IT.

What are some common pitfalls to look out for when choosing a remote backup
provider?

We used to say that on the internet nobody knows if you're a dog. Well, nobody knows if you're one guy in a com-
puter in a Linux box doing online data backup for people. Make sure that you are doing business with a trustworthy
company that's going to be around when you need it. It doesn't do any good to pay an insurance company that
won't be there when you wreck your car. And it doesn't do any good to have data backups that aren't going to work
in times of disasters.

Another pitfall is that people don't test restores. Whatever it is that you're expecting from restores, make sure you
test them on a regular basis because that's the only way you're going to know whether or not the company you
choose is doing their job.

Can you explain the differences between the services that these vendors offer?
For example, what's the difference between how they get data to you when you
need to do a restore?

All online backup service providers have a basic service where you put a piece of software on the computers that
you're backing up and they back up to their servers on the other side of the internet. Some of them also offer a
local server that you can back up, which is a good option to have. Remote backups are great for backup, but
they're not necessarily great for restore. For example, if you have a couple hundred gigabytes of data on the inter-
net -- getting that data back onsite could take quite a while. So make sure you've looked into vendors that have a
local server that you can back up to, and then replicate that server back to their central site.

Online backup service providers also have other options that are just used in times of restores. These options are
more appropriate for somebody who's looking at a 48- to 72-hour recovery time objective (RTO), because basically
what they amount to is cutting in tape, cutting CDs or DVDs, and depending on the amount of data, restoring to a
disk or disk array. Then they ship that to you. Keep in mind that because you have to ship it, and because shipping
has cutoff times depending on when you have the problem, you could have well over a 24-hour turnover time, and
then you have to start your restore. Look into those options, but keep in mind that they typically have extra costs
associated with them.

Other areas where online backup service providers differentiate themselves is the kind of backup reporting that
they offer. For example, do they let you know when backups stop working? I know that most, if not all of them,

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 Key considerations for evaluating remote backup services
How to choose the best remote online backup service provider

have some kind of notification, but just realize that the whole point here is that you're paying a monthly bill so that
you don't have to worry about it. And if there is a problem -- make sure they let you know if it's been a couple of
days since your backups ran.

Also, I'm not sure if any of them actually offer this, but it would be nice if they had an escalation so that if it's been
one day or two days, the email notifications about your backup status go to your backup administrator, but if it's
been a week, the emails go to the backup administrator's boss. That would be nice, but I'm not sure if anybody's
offering that yet though.

What about service-level agreements? Do remote online backup providers offer

these? Are they negotiable?

Some of them do and absolutely everything is negotiable. Just realize that nothing is for free. So the more require-
ments and agreements that you request from the vendor, the more that's going to cost them to provide that serv-
ice to you, and then the more it's going to cost you in the long run. So, yes, some of them do that, but realize that
nothing is for free.

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 WHERE

DOES YOUR DATA

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 Key considerations for evaluating remote backup services
Is a cloud data backup service right for your organization

Is a cloud data backup service right for your organization?

By: Lauren Whitehouse

Assessing your organization's challenges, abilities and assets will help to determine if deploying a cloud-based data
backup strategy is a better alternative than relying on an on-site data backup and recovery strategy. Here's what to
consider when trying deciding if cloud backup is right for your organization:

Budget. Do you know what your current costs are for data protection? Have you evaluated staff costs to determine
if eliminating any on-premises infrastructure, introducing automation or adopting more-advanced technology, would
alleviate issues? A comparison of all capital and operational expenses for on-premises technology over three years
vs. the operational expenses for cloud-based backup over three years may yield surprises. For example, for a back-
up tape strategy, the maintenance fees for on-premises hardware and software, media purchases and storage fees,
and operations overhead over three years could pay for three years of a hybrid cloud service.

Daily capacity of backup data. How much data needs protecting (based on the total capacity of data and the
daily change rate)? What's the frequency of backups required to meet recovery objectives? Calculate how much
backup data needs to be transferred on a daily basis. And, given the available bandwidth, whether or not the
transfer can be accomplished within the backup window.

Data protection gaps. Do you have new directives to improve protection at remote office/branch offices (ROBOs)
or with endpoints? Do you have the staff and capital budget to invest in these new initiatives? Do you currently
have a disaster recovery (DR) strategy? If yes, do your people, processes and technology allow you to meet
recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs)? Leveraging a cloud backup vendor to
augment current on-premises data protection processes may be more cost-effective (no upfront capital investment
in infrastructure and no additional headcount required) than extending on-premises capabilities.

Infrastructure. Is the current infrastructure limiting your ability to meet the needs of the organization? Have
budget constraints limited your ability to keep pace with technology advancements? Were you going to do a
technology refresh soon anyway? Organizations without the capital budget to extend or refresh the IT infrastructure
to meet data protection needs -- but with a sufficient operational budget -- can fund monthly service fees through
their operational budget to improve data protection processes.

Service-level agreements (SLAs) and compliance mandates. Can you successfully complete your backup
within the prescribed window of time? Can you recover data to meet agreed-upon timeframes? If not, is the
inability related to outdated technology or lack of sufficient operational staff? Can you meet corporate and/or
regulatory requirements with your current people, processes and technology? Does your process for maintaining
offsite copies introduce any security risks? If you have recovery service level agreements that are more aggressive
than what can be delivered by streaming data over your WAN link or physically transported on portable disk (not
unlike tape media from offsite storage), cloud-based backup may not be for you. If you don't have the discipline
and capabilities to meet compliance objectives, then outsourcing data protection to a vendor that can support
compliance efforts may pay off.

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 Key considerations for evaluating remote backup services
Is a cloud data backup service right for your organization

Staffing levels and expertise. Has the economic climate impacted your ability to appropriately staff the data
protection function? Do your current backup/recovery infrastructure and processes rely too heavily on operational
staff? Do you have in-house expertise to properly architect, build and maintain data protection infrastructure and
processes to meet objectives now and in the future? An operations staff is often the most costly aspect of data
protection, so adding data protection capabilities without necessitating additional staff could be more feasible.

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 Key considerations for evaluating remote backup services
Resources from Venyu

Resources from Venyu

SM

ESG Lab Review: Venyu Cloud-Based Backup & Virtualized Server Recovery

ESG Lab Review Video (7 mins): Venyu Cloud-Based Backup & Virtualized Server Recovery

Venyu's AmeriVault Backup Service: FAST QUOTE CALCULATOR

About Venyu
Venyu combines 30 years of experience between online data backup leader, AmeriVault, and
hosting services veteran, NTG. Unified as one, Venyu is a premier provider of cloud-based data
protection, recovery, and availability services. Our solutions are tailored to support the recovery
objectives and service levels organizations require to stay competitive while focusing on their core
competencies. Our progressive portfolio includes online data backup, physical and virtualized
recovery solutions, managed hosting, SaaS, and colocation services. Venyu is backed by geo-
graphically-diverse, commercial-grade data centers, highly-qualified technicians, and iron-clad
security controls.

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