Online Backup Service Providers: Clarifying
Value Proposition
White Paper presented by:
REMOTE BACKUP SYSTEMS, INC. ONLINE BACKUP SOFTWARE www.remote-backup.com
•Introduction •A Brief History of Backup Universe •...Who has my Data, and Where? •Customer Service in Online Backup, What does it mean? •Cost/Benefit Analysis – Don’t Believe Hype •Summary
Copyright © 2004, Remote Backup Systems, Inc. Any reuse without expressed written permission of RBS is prohibited.
Introduction Online Backup of computer data is finally gaining mainstream acceptance among business and consumer clients. Due primarily to pervasive nature of internet and widespread availability of broadband connectivity, online data backup is finally coming into its own. With this change from a technology once considered domain of only largest well-funded businesses to a high-profile, high-reliability service offering come many challenges for consumer. An historical look at data backup and management marketplace and technologies that helped shape it helps to make some sense of current trends in this business. In an effort to make use of their idle server farms, wholesale online ‘Data-Mart’ companies have begun advertising remote backup services at ultra low prices, attempting to capitalize on new-found popularity of service. Data Storage and Online Data Repository companies are also on every virtual corner, hawking wildly varied products that initially confuse even industry veterans. Many of these companies are actually in advertising sales business, and feature data backup as a sort of loss leader, hoping to attract visitors – and thereby advertisers, to their sites. The value of computer data is higher today than ever before, yet many online remote backup companies seem convinced that businesses are interested in a ‘lowest common denominator’ backup solution. Corners are being cut, misinformation rules, and marketing dollars are flying. In a forest-and-trees analogy, price wars are blinding corporate America to critical data management component they began looking for in first place – service. Following is an exploration of commercial computer data backup and storage market, historically and currently, within context of diverse service levels provided by different types of companies.
A brief History of Remote Data Backup and Offsite Data Storage Universe In olden days - that is mid 1980’s - there simply wasn’t any commercially available Online Backup software. The small handfuls of people providing service were using a mix-and-match combination of communications, shareware, and other utilities not designed for remote data backup. In fact, there were no standard protocols at all for electronic communications or graphic user interface to computer programs. The microcomputer industry was in a great state of change and modems were still stalled at 1200 to 2400 baud, making transfers of large amounts of data excruciatingly slow (1 mb = 72 minutes!!). As technologies improved, so did possibilities and prospects for online data backup and management industry. As connectivity speeds increased, market for Online Backup services expanded...
During time that faster modems and internet protocols were in development, tape backup systems gained in popularity. The mainstay of larger corporations since 1950’s, tape backup saw significant improvements with advent of 8mm and 4mm tape formats, achieving then-revolutionary local transfer speeds of 240 KB per second. Cottage industries sprung up as technology began to transform existing paper record storage businesses into larger tape transport and storage enterprises. Because of ongoing costs associated with moving these tapes around and relatively high failure rates of restoring data from tapes, companies began to research and develop ways to transfer data over telephone lines. Software costs were as high as $125,000 for first reliable product, and high-speed modems were still relatively scarce. The need for an affordable, reliable online backup system was becoming clear. In 1987 Remote Backup Systems, Inc.’s founder introduced first commercially available online backup system to a group of physicians in Memphis, TN. Originally designed for backing up medical records to a remote location, requirements were strict on features including encryption, compression, authentication, and other high security measures. As connectivity speeds increased, market for online backup services expanded. The advent of Cable and DSL modems offered an opportunity for average business to take advantage of latest in secure data transfer technology. During tech boom of 1990’s this service gained widespread acceptance among many industries, including small and medium sized organizations that began to rely more heavily on PCs for their businesses profitability. Now, as high-speed connectivity is becoming commonplace and general acceptance of secure data transfer increases, service is gaining mainstream popularity. Many IT firms are looking to add service offerings which provide a recurring revenue stream while requiring minimal resource dedication - and online backup is more attractive than ever. From dedicated remote backup service providers to ‘data management companies’ who are actually in advertising sales business, landscape of this industry is becoming more difficult to navigate every day.
Reseller, Client and Server, or Data Repository – Who Has My Data, and Where? When a business decides to add Remote Backup to their data management plan, subsequent decision on which type of service to choose can be equally as critical. The data backup industry is perhaps most confusing market segment in all of digital data management, due largely to amount of marketing hype and misinformation in industry as well as sheer number of companies in this space. To cut through some of confusion and propaganda, it can safely be said that there are three main types of remote backup companies an organization can choose to do business with: •Backup Service Resellers – These companies act as middlemen, charging their clients for use of another company’s backup software, hardware, and support network. They may offer some education and assistance during sales and support process, and they may appear as a more secure option due to their affiliation with a larger company. Resellers usually have no physical responsibility or control over stored data, and may not even know where data physically rests at any given time. The ability to deliver data to a client organization is dictated primarily by hosting company, not sales organization, and details around this process are typically contained in sub-paragraphs of contract. These companies are also frequently in direct competition with their own suppliers, which can result in strained supply chain relations and hierarchal availability of services. •Online Data Storage /Data Repository Vendors – Like their names imply, data storage and repository companies rent space on their servers and allow clients to simply park data there. Users are typically required to manually log in to service, to configure repository to fit their needs, and to manually move data to vendor’s storage area. Usually deployed separately from an automated and secure data protection measure, data repositories can allow individuals or organizations to share data by uploading it to a third-party server or mailing disks in to be loaded by hosting company, enabling access by others on a password-protected basis. These offerings can run gamut from consumer photo-sharing applications to more sophisticated products which allow sharing and collaboration on projects, documents, and other data.
