Some businesses opt for online backup procedures as opposed to the traditional physical transfer of storage material to a safe location.
Online backups have the advantage that they do not require human intervention in order to transfer the data off the premises. This is carried out usually at night as per a predefined schedule agreed between the business and those providing the services.
When choosing to back up data over the internet, the following factors should be considered:
A fast and reliable internet connection is required to transfer large amounts of data.
Although ASDL lines might have download speeds in excess of 24MB, their upload rates might only be 1MB and this is the crucial factor when transferring data from the business to the backup agent.
For large amounts of data or for big files a lease line where upload and download speeds are equalised is preferred. These however typically cost ten times the amount which could be paid for an ADSL line.
In additional to any costs of transmission, some online backups require a dedicated server to be placed in-house to collect, compress and funnel the business data to the storage facility.
This can be a significant upfront cost for the business as the costs of such machines are usually above market rates for similar equipment.
The space required to house this additional server might also be a factor where communication room facilities are limited.
If staff or managers routinely work in the evening, the uploading of significant quantities of data could disrupt their ability for perform certain tasks.
Certainly in situations where the line is being shared between remote working and the nightly backup, staff might well find that the communication between themselves and the server slows dramatically.
Due the time restrictions placed on when data can be backed up, the transfer of large files might not be feasible. Data which might be affected could be the Microsoft Exchange databases which can exceed 20GB or other in-house databases which might be quite sizeable.
Even if these files are capable of being uploaded in the course of the late evening and morning, the costs to the business, where backup costs are based on size of storage space used could be prohibitive.
