Offsite backup in a small businesses – which type of cloud is best?

22 Nov 2011

File replication between primary and remote secondary sites offers SMBs all the benefits of cloud storage, without using cloud computing, as Mario Blandini, director of product marketing at Drobo, explains.

For small businesses, the choice for offsite backup is generally between two different types of  cloud: not culmulus or cirrus, but rather, public or private.

Other approaches - such as tape vaulting, for example - can certainly meet offsite backup requirements, too, but these days, tape is not considered part of ‘big sky’ thinking.

The fact remains, however, that small businesses are less interested in how progressive they are and choose technology solutions on the basis of cost-efficiency and ease-of-use.

Ask most small-business owners whether they consistently execute backups and regularly transport the media used offsite, and the honest ones will generally concede that it doesn’t happen all of the time. Nor do they have real confidence in their ability to recover quickly and easily from tape backup.

Cloud, by contrast, promises high degrees of automation for consistency, as well as rapid access to the data if something goes wrong. Plus, it can be budgeted as an ongoing service expense (Opex), rather than in the form of a hefty upfront investment (Capex).

As a result, cloud is what people concerned with safe, regular backups are talking about. Many cloud offerings cater either to very large enterprises or to individual consumers. Small businesses lie somewhere between the two, so when cloud vendors change their low introductory or unlimited pricing model, cost can become a concern. Networks in small companies tend to be small and Internet connections slow, which adds another constraint in moving data to and from the cloud.

At the same time, custody of data is extremely important to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Issues around control and custody of data vary from SMB to SMB, but as a general rule, the smaller the business, the more likely it is that the business owner will want to know exactly where their business and customer data is residing. Often, they feel safer when their data is locked in their own premises. Small government groups, such as municipalities and public safety agencies think like this as well: they want full control of their data, even if they are not IT experts.

The solution is simple: file replication between two sites. This provides automatic offsite backup and enables very rapid access to files and restoration of file data.

Using intelligent technology, only new files or changes in existing files (incremental backups) are copied to a secondary site. The process of synchronising a primary site and a remote secondary site can be scheduled to automatically run during off-peak hours or at multiple points during the day. Unlike public cloud backup, the secondary storage system can be physically transported to the primary site (if needed) far more quickly than it would take to copy all of that data down from the cloud.

So how can a small business get started with offsite backup? That’s simple: it needs to deploy the right type of easy-to-use, capable storage system at its two chosen locations which, ideally, are sufficiently distant from each other that they don’t share the same ‘disaster radius’ in the event of fire or flood.

Many local resellers offer a blend of onsite and hosted services, where they deliver capital solutions at the small business location and also lease equipment and space in their own facility for the offsite backup.

In this way, SMBs can experience the benefits of a private cloud combined with the ease and automation of a public cloud - all while not using a cloud at all.