The importance of preserving data combined with the inconvenience inherent in most backup solutions leaves room for new contenders.
I've chronicled my frustrations with backup software, but there's a new kid on the block.
You'll like the kid's cache, too, when I explain the opportunity (deal) we have arranged for readers of MC TNT Tips 'N Techniques.
It seems that the backup industry generally is moving to an online format today as higher bandwidths and inexpensive storage make it possible for small and medium businesses (SMBs) to store data online. Larger businesses have so much data, and it's often so confidential, that they are flirting with online services more than actually utilizing them.
SMBs, however, find the online storage and services solutions intriguing. They are more concerned with some crackhead breaking into their offices and stealing their computers than they are with having their personnel files compromised while traveling through cyberspace to an online storage provider.
I'll never forget the call I received from my ex one morning after she arrived at her office that we had newly leased and from which she was running her budding insurance agency. Someone had thrown a cement block through her glass entry door and stolen all her computer equipment. I don't recall how many times I had suggested she get an alarm system, but it was frequent enough to irritate her. You can bet she installed an alarm the next day, though.
Depending on your neighborhood, most people still back up data locally, worrying more about incurring a catastrophic disk crash than becoming the victim of the anti-penurial aspirations of the darlings residing in a nearby halfway house. While that may sound amusing, plug your address into http://www.felonspy.com/ and see how many people with criminal backgrounds live right around the corner from you or your office; in my case, it's seven around my office and nine around my residence (what does that tell you about where I live?). To be fair, however, hardware or system failure accounts for 78 percent of all data loss, and human error accounts for another 11 percent.
So I'm still a kind of save-it-to-DVD-and-store-it-in-my-safe-deposit-box kind of guy. Plus, I need that $10 a month that the online storage provider wants to support my Starbucks habit (obviously, I haven't been visiting often enough as the company has announced it's closing 600 stores).
So I've finally settled on Acronis True Image 11, which allows for scheduled backups to virtually any media and provides for disk imaging, which saves a lot of time. The company has a breadth of solutions all the way up to large-enterprise.
Among other popular Windows backup programs is Second Copy 7 from Centered Systems. Second Copy enjoys widespread support among users, including IT administrators at small businesses and nonprofits. One IT manager at an art museum with 35 workstations and 450 GB of data--including 100,000 irreplaceable high-resolution JPGs--writes in a forum that, "I love Second Copy and have used it for about 7 or 8 years." He goes on to describe how he has given up on tape and instead has two workstations, each with multiple hard drives and each running Second Copy. Each workstation copies the data weekly that has changed daily, so he has a Monday drive, a Tuesday drive, etc. (kind of reminds you of budgeting by using envelopes holding cash to pay the doctor, the baker, etc., doesn't it?). He also has USB drives connected to the server and to his personal workstation to which Second Copy also makes backups. Once a week, he plugs in to an offsite backup site and uses Second Copy to do a manual backup. I mean this guy is the kind of person you want in charge of your irreplaceable JPGs, isn't he?
Another popular backup solution is Genie Backup Manager Pro 8.0, a serious backup solution that will perform virtually any file storage or rescue task you can think of. Genie Backup Manager provides for incremental backups with rollback, which preserves earlier versions of backups rather than overwriting them. A Swift Restore option creates an executable backup file that restores itself without running the backup utility. The company has a server backup edition, Genie Backup Manager Server 8.0, and now online backup services, Genie Online Backup and Genie Online Backup Web Server. The solution is a little more expensive than Second Copy and even the higher Acronis, but it's ripe with features.
Creators of the new backup product to which I was referring have aspirations of greatness. At the rate they are going, they will likely get there. Titan Backup 2.1, created by Neobyte Solutions SRL with offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Belgium, but headquarters in Romania, is a sensible solution for SMBs running Windows, though files on any networked computer can be backed up.
Titan Backup Business contains Titan Backup Business Server and Titan Backup Business Workstation. (There is also home edition.) The workstation software is very reasonably priced with multiple-license discounts for shops with a number of workstations. There is also a 60-day money-back guarantee. IT administrators can create and manage backup tasks from a centralized Web-based console and control a local or remote computer as long as it's running Titan Backup Business Workstation. The software can make automatic backups of your files, emails, and rules, registry, and program settings on most storage, including network drives, remote FTP servers, DC/DVD, and USB removable devices. It uses 256-bit AES strong encryption to ensure others can't get into files stored on removable media.
The administrator can view aggregated backup logs and reports from all computers in the network. The solution is scalable, and the company says it can manage an unlimited number of workstations connected to the server. Written in PHP, the Titan Backup Business Server can run on any Web server with PHP support, so theoretically it can run on the IBM i, though no one has reported trying it yet. The Titan Business Server is delivered as an "installation kit" that includes an Apache Web server and a light SQL server. For advanced users who have a Web server and MySQL running on their computers, it's delivered as a "Source Zip Package."
One nice feature of the software is that it comes with access to the source code and the option to customize it to a user's specific needs. Titan Backup has an engine that allows for the execution of plug-ins. It comes in the box with a set of predefined plug-ins for popular applications, such as mail clients (Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, Opera, Eudora, etc.) and other program settings (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Winamp, etc.) The plug-in file is in standard XML format and open to anyone who wants to write their own plug-ins.
Another feature is that it uses non-proprietary zip file format, including self-extracting archive files, instead of a proprietary archive format like many other backup solutions. Titan Backup also can back up open files using the Volume Shadow Copy Service provided in Windows. The solution verifies the integrity of the data and even will run third-party programs or commands so you can shut down the computer after running a backup. It can be set to email a notification to you if it comes across an error or warning or if you wish it to send a summary report by email upon completion of the backup.
The software normally is available to download online only for a 15-day free-trial period. MC Press Online, however, has made special arrangements with Neobyte Solutions to offer the first 250 TNT readers who respond three free computer software licenses apiece. If you are interested in taking advantage of this offer, write to me at
And that trend toward online backup services? Neobyte is well aware of it and says it is working on a service of its own to be introduced soon.
Not bad for a new kid on the block, eh?
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