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An Offsite File-Backup Service
Designed for Most Businesses

The heavily advertised file back-up services seem to be designed
only for consumers. But here's a back-up service designed to
meet the needs of most businesses.

I've become increasingly concerned about file backup over the past year, for several reasons:

• About once a week, an ExcelUser customer writes to say that his hard drive has failed and that he needs another copy of a file he's purchased.
   
• A house fire in my neighborhood -- caused by an oil-soaked rag placed on a deck railing where it would be "safe" -- reminded me that I didn't store backups off-site.
   
• In spite of my best intentions, I don't back up as frequently as I should.
   
• I moved recently, and found myself hauling my computer in my car with me wherever I went. I was mostly concerned about the data, not the hardware.

So I started to check out backup services. At first, I researched services I heard advertised on the radio, or discussed in magazines. But I found some real problems with them, as I'll explain.

Finally, when I spoke recently at an AICPA Technology conference, I met Levi Staal, the President of Abacus Online Backups. He explained that the backup services I had been researching weren't designed for businesses. As I compared Abacus to the other systems I had seen, I understood his point.

I signed up for his backup service several weeks ago and started the backup process. Over the next several days, Abacus backed up my 50 gigabytes of data, with no apparent effect on my computer's performance as the files were being backed up. Now, with all the files backed up, Abacus backs up changes according to the schedule I've set.

Below is a comparison of the other backup systems with Abacus. By "the others" I'm referring to the typical performance I found among the other backup services that I looked into. 

• The others don't back up files greater than 2 gigabytes in size. This is a show stopper because many businesses have larger files.
  
  But Abacus can back up files of any length.
   
• The others keep only one version of our documents. This is a show stopper because it's easy to damage a file by mistake. And corrupt files are fairly common.
  
  But Abacus can store files by date for 20 years.
   
• The others don't use file compression. This is a show stopper because it severely reduces the amount of backup data we can transmit per 24 hours. One heavily advertised backup service sets this limit at only around 2 gigs per 24 hours with a DSL connection...if we don't use our computer during that time. But if we use our computer for 12 hours per day, then only one gig can be backed up per day.
  
  This is a show stopper, of course, because I have more than 50 gigs of data and I'm using my computer constantly.
  
  But Abacus compresses and transmits the files whether I'm using my computer or not.
   
• The others restore as slowly as they back up. This is a show stopper because if I lose my data I wouldn't want to take a 25-day vacation to allow my computer to slowly restore 50 gigs of data at two gigs per day.
  
  But Abacus takes a different approach. For quick restoration, they can copy our data to a USB hard drive and send it to us overnight. Similarly, for a quick backup, we can send our data to them on a USB hard drive.
   
• The others don't back up open files or databases like SQL Server, Oracle, Domino, or MS Exchange. This is a show stopper for many businesses.
  
  But Abacus can back up open files and databases.
   
• One of the most heavily advertised backup companies limits backup to half a gig after 50 gigs have been backed up. This is a show stopper because my Outlook file alone is larger than that and needs to be backed up daily.
  
  But Abacus imposes no such limitations.
   
• The others back up the complete file, even if only a small piece of it has changed. This is a show stopper because it would take six hours per day merely to back up my Outlook file.
  
  But Abacus uses "binary patching." The practical effect of this technology is that they back up only the changes in a file, not the whole file.
  
  As a consequence of binary patching, Abacus is able to keep computers with as much as 2 terabytes (2,000 gigabytes) fully backed up.
   
• The others don't store our data in an encrypted format. That's a show stopper because their employees could see our data.
  
  But Abacus uses 128-bit encryption to ensure that we're the only ones who can access our own data. 

"With over a terabyte of data to back up, our tape backup was running more than 13 hours a day, and even then, it simply couldn't keep up. The process was becoming more and more unmanageable over time.

"We had to be on-site to change the tapes, remember to take the tapes off-site, catalogue the tapes, regularly verify the contents of each tape, clean the tape heads, and of course purchase the tapes. And even still, we were never 100% sure the backup worked.

"ABACUS changed that. It's an inexpensive solution which is fully automatic - you set it and forget it. We spent a just few minutes configuring the settings according to our needs, and then the backups run daily, even hourly in some cases, without any human intervention. I get an email report delivered to my inbox which confirms which files were backed up, or if any problems were encountered. And with every backup, we have the added security of knowing our data is replicated in three locations across North America simultaneously.

"Having removed most of the hassles of doing backups, I am certainly a satisfied customer."

In short, I like the Abacus solution. Unlike most of the other backup services you may have heard about, this one is designed for business use. To find out more, go to Abacus Online Backups.