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All packages include use of Microsoft Windows®-compatible backup software for use on one (1) PC, laptop, or server.
Licensed users can perform an unlimited number of backups and restorations using an existing Internet connection.
Each Windows device must have its own license; storage quota is counted across all systems included in the selected plan.
DATA is encrypted and compressed up to 90% prior to transmission to our storage servers so when looking at packages to purchase realize that the amount of data in your system to be backed up usually will not take the same amount of storage space on our servers. If you're having a hard time deciding which plan to choose pick a smaller plan that you think you need as you can upgrade at any time without any additional fees other than the increase in monthly service cost.
After your first backup you will have a better idea of exactly how much space you will need.
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FEATURES:
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VSS
Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) was created to provide a backup and recovery infrastructure for the Windows Server 2003 operating system. It includes a mechanism for creating point-in-time copies of data to preserve relational integrity. While the Service can provide coverage for some missed files during backups, there are limitations because many business applications are either non-VSS aware or IT administrators are using VSS to backup file-only servers.
The Dilemma
The VSS framework coordinates VSS compliant backup applications (requestors), business applications (writers), and storage snapshot technology (providers) to enable reliable storage backup and recovery. Backup applications and business applications must be VSS compliant in order to benefit from the VSS framework. However, many applications are not VSS compliant and may never be updated to be compliant because of development and maintenance costs. Also, VSS cannot predict or control the I/O flow of such legacy applications. The VSS solution to legacy writer support is to provide “crash consistency”. This means that VSS only guarantees file system integrity and does not guarantee legacy writer transaction integrity. If the VSS snapshot is created while a legacy writer transaction is in progress, the snapshot will contain a partial transaction and will be corrupt.
Don’t Take Chances; Use Empyreal Systems Online Backup Service with Open File Agent.
If you are unsure about any applications’ VSS-compliancy status, don’t take chances with legacy backup solutions or VSS alone; use Empyreal Systems Online Backup Service in conjunction with your current plan and insure data integrity during backups. If other servers in your network are managed by anything other than Empyreal Systems Remote Backup Service with OFA support built in your taking chances of possibly having incomplete backups and corrupt files. If you have file-only servers or applications and related files on separate servers and you want to guarantee the integrity of your backups, use Empyreal Systems Online Backup Service with Open File Agent in conjunction with your current backup strategy or VSS. Make Empyreal Systems Online Backup service part of your disaster recover plan today.
Microsoft Exchange
Version 9.4 continues to allow you to back up Exchange Server granularly, while Exchange is running. You can also now exclude specific Exchange user account folders (e.g. Junk Mail, Deleted Items, etc.) from selected mailboxes, and back up only new messages in selected folders after the initial backup is complete - thereby shortening backup sessions and insuring that you backup only the most critical data. Restores are at the mail-folder level, per user. There's no need to shut down the Exchange server for either backups or restores. This is a standard feature at no additional charge.
Understanding How BitBackup Works
Overview
BitBackup technology is included in version 9.0 and greater of the Backup Client software. When enabled, this technology can substantially reduce the time it takes to do an online backup of large data files.
It accomplishes this by storing a complete reference copy of all backed up files in a local disk cache. It then uses the contents of this cache during subsequent backups to identify individual records that have changed. The software then backs up only these records. This results in shorter backup times and reduced storage requirements on the offsite server.
BitBackup is supported on Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003.
Warning: Due to disk cache requirements, use of the BitBackup feature on PCs with less than 5 GB of free disk storage is not recommended.
How It Works
BitBackup technology can substantially reduce the amount of time it takes to perform an online backup of a large file. It does this by identifying and archiving only the records within the file that have changed since the last time a complete backup of the file was performed.
For example, consider the case where a critical database of customer records is updated daily. Over time, this file will tend to grow large. However, the amount of data added or deleted on any day may be just a few records.
With a traditional approach to backups, if even a single record in a file changes, a complete copy of the entire file must be transferred to the server. This complete backup could take many hours to perform and result in substantial usage of offsite storage for each copy of the file maintained.
BitBackups are different.
When performing a BitBackup, a complete file backup is performed the first time. But, on subsequent backups, the software determines the records that have changed since the initial backup and transmits only the changed records (plus some administrative information) to the offsite storage server.
Since the size of the changed records is likely to be much smaller than the size of the entire file, a BitBackup may take just a few minutes to complete. In cases where multiple file copies are maintained, BitBackup technology reduces the use of disk space on the offsite storage server.
BitBackup technology makes extensive use of a local reference disk cache. It also has built-in management intelligence to determine whether it is appropriate to transmit file changes, or to “roll forward” and perform a complete backup of a data file.
Databases, Outlook personal storage files (email), large documents and any other data files which change only modestly each day are ideal candidates for a BitBackup.
Step-by-Step Walkthrough of a BitBackup
The first day’s backup, illustrated above by the rectangle labeled “1” shows a complete backup of the database being transmitted to the offsite server. At the same time, a reference copy of the database is stored in a local cache on the client PC.
On day two, when the BitBackup ran, it detected that there were changes in the production database file. It then compared the database file in its reference cache to the current database in production on the PC. A small number of records were identified as actually changing. These records, along with some administrative information were then compressed, encrypted and transmitted to the backup server.
On day three there were more changes to the database. Once again, a comparison was made between the production database and the original reference copy in the local cache on the PC (from the backup performed on day one.) The number of changes was still relatively small and this data was transmitted to the offsite storage server.
On days four and five, the process repeated. However, four days have now passed and the version of the database in the local cache differs greatly from the version now in production use. The amount of change data records being sent over to the server is now substantial since the changes have accumulated for several days.
On day six, more changes were made to the production database. However, because the number of changed records (from the original version) is now substantial, the BitBackup software has decided to perform a complete backup of the file versus sending a large number of change records.
Note: We call the process of retransmitting the entire database file a “roll forward.” A complete backup is transmitted to the server and is also copied to the local reference cache – replacing the version originally stored on day one.
On days seven, eight and nine, the process continues. Note that the change records transmitted now reflect differences in the production database when compared to the roll forward backup performed on day six.
By enabling BitBackup for this database file, and permitting use of a local reference cache on the client PC, we are able to significantly reduce the amount of offsite storage and reduce the overall time required to perform backups on most nights (except roll forward refreshes.)
Restoring a File Using BitBackup
To BitBackup, file eight is actually reference file number six with changes from day eight applied So in order to reconstitute the backup from day eight, the software restores change file eight and “parent” file number six. It then uses the administrative information in change file eight to combine files six and eight into the restored file eight.
The end user of course never sees any of this complexity - they just get their data back.
Note: In some cases, it may be possible to restore data files from the local reference cache without the need to retrieve the data from the offsite storage server.
Enabling BitBackup
BitBackup can be enabled on any backup set. The management controls are found on the scheduler dialog box as shown below.
BitBackup is considered a special form of incremental backup. The first time that a BitBackup set is executed all files in the selection list are backed up – irrespective of the archive flag on the files. However, in subsequent runs, only files which change (as indicated by the file archive flag) are backed up.
Two options are available to manage the size of change files which are transferred to the server. These are: Roll-Forward Threshold and Threshold Size. The settings are mutually exclusive.
Roll-Forward Threshold, if checked, permits you to specify the number of backups which can be performed before the software is forced to transfer a completely new copy of a data file to the offsite server.
Alternatively, Threshold Size permits you to send change data to the offsite server as long as the size of the change file does not exceed 25, 50, 75 or 100% of the reference file already stored on that server. If the change file does exceed the selected percentage, then a roll-forward operation will be performed.
The default behavior of BitBackup is to send change backups to the server until the changes exceed 25% of the size of the full reference file already on the server.
Implementation Considerations
BitBackup is a technology which uses the local resources of a PC, both CPU and disk, to optimize the performance of an online backup. Use of these local resources can both speed up the time required to perform backups (on average) and reduce the storage requirements for clients wishing to keep multiple copies (generations) of a file on the offsite storage server.
Be advised that considerable local compute resources are required to examine each file being backed up to determine on a record by record basis what has changed. Substantial additional storage resources are also required to hold reference copies of data files in a local disk cache In general, we do not advise the use of the BitBackup feature on PCs which have less than 5 GB of free disk storage to be used as a local disk cache. Likewise, PCs or servers which currently carry a heavy workload may not be good candidates for use of BitBackup.
SQL Server
OnlineBackup now backs up and restores multiple instances of SQL Server databases while they are in use on a single machine, one per backup job, so there's no need to shut down the SQL Server. This is a standard feature at no additional charge.
File Selection Criteria
The ‘Archive Bit’ Vs ‘Last Modified date/time’: Incremental or Differential or BitBackups used to rely on the archive-bit setting of each file to determine whether the file has been modified or not. This setting can now be switched to rely on ‘Last Modified date/time’ instead, and is configurable per-backup set. If you create a backup set with the file selection criteria as "Modified date/time", the first backup will automatically be a full backup even if the backup type is incremental, differential etc. In subsequent backups, it compares this value with the current value and if different (greater or lesser), it selects the file for backup.
PC Back-up
Backing up business data is not a new concept. Since the late 1970s, businesses have used a variety of approaches to backup their essential data. Each option provides significant advantages and disadvantages to your business.
Regardless of which method you use, it's essential to backup your information in a secure offsite location. No matter how effective your backup methods are, if they're stored at your location the data will still be at risk if a natural disaster hits your office or your system becomes infected with a virus.
The most traditional approach is to make physical backup copies of the data and contract a storage center to make regular pickups. This can be done on tapes, DVDs, or other removable storage media. These methods are generally inexpensive at first, but may require expensive hardware, if you don't have tape backup drives or DVD burners. They can also be demanding on your employees' time and productivity.
External backup drives and RAID servers (redundant array of inline disks) are useful, automated means of creating backups that can help you recover from most disk failures. However, they don’t give you an offsite backup option to protect against viruses or natural disasters.
Remote data backup encrypts your data and sends it over a secure Internet connection to a data storage house. You don't need any special equipment other than a high-speed Internet connection, and you can schedule automatic backups as frequently as needed. It's also relatively inexpensive making it the best option for small to mid-sized businesses.
How online backup works
Most online backup services work with any major operating system including Windows, Mac, UNIX, Linux, and more. Unlike other backup methods like tape drives or network servers, online backup doesn't require specific hardware. Simple client software lets you select the files you wish to backup, restore data, and view a history of changes.
The installed software allows you to schedule an online backup of critical files and documents, complex databases and company mailboxes. It's sophisticated enough that you can access individual documents, system files, and even email messages at any point in time and restore them back to your computer, yet simple enough for anyone in your office to use.
When an online backup runs, the information is sent over the Internet to servers at a secure data center. On-site personnel ensure the data centers are operating smoothly 24x7x365. They monitor the Internet and power connections and make sure the server room is cool and dry. More importantly, the setup is redundant – if there is a problem at the data center, your file transfers automatically default to a backup data center in a different location. This ensures your scheduled backups occur on time even if the primary data center has an outage.
Backing up data requires a lot of bandwidth, so most businesses schedule online backups at the end of the work day when computers aren't in use. You can schedule real-time backups that take place in the background while you work, but they can slow down computer performance and hamper productivity.
To recover your data, you log in to the client software and select the restoration option. This will pull up a detailed list of changes to the file you're restoring. You can then select which version to download to your network.
Initial online backup process
The heaviest lifting in the online backup process is the "seed backup." This initial backup occurs on a service-provided hard drive at your office and captures a complete image of all the computers on your network and downloads the configurations to an external hard drive. The data is compressed and encrypted, and the hard drive is then shipped to the data center.
The seed backup is important for two reasons. First, it gives the vendor a point of reference for what your system should look like. If your system is hit with a disaster, they can use this mirror image to restore your network.
Second, seed backups speed future daily online backups. While the initial process takes many hours to complete, subsequent backups take only 10 to 15 minutes a day. The process is streamlined because the software transmits only the incremental changes to the data center.
Is this solution HIPAA Compliant?
Empyreal Systems backup solution and HIPAA compliance.
The following are excepts from portions of the HIPAA Administrative Simplification Security Rule that may apply to how a remote backup service such as Empyreal Systems Online Backup Solution could apply.
This is in no means meant to be a legal consultation and although we believe all the information is factual we suggest that you consult with your legal counsel before proceeding with any backup software or service provider.
Security
The Security Rule is the one part of HIPAA that clearly applies to the type of services that Remote Backup providers offers.
The Security Rule legislates the means that should be used to protect PHI. It requires that covered entities have appropriate Administrative Procedures, Physical Safeguards, and Technical Safeguards to protect access to PHI.
Examples of appropriate safeguards include:
- Establishment of clear Access Control policies, procedures, and technology to restrict who has authorized access to PHI.
- Establishment of restricted and locked areas where PHI is stored.
- Establishment of appropriate Data Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Emergency Mode Operation planning.
- Establishment of technical security mechanisms such as encryption to protect data that is transmitted via a network.
Empyreal Systems Remote Backup is compliant with the Final Security Rule.
Empyreal Systems data centers are manned 24x7x365 with biometric and card key access controls as well as locked and secured storage systems, cages, and cabinets.
Empyreal Systems Remote Backup can form a critical part of Data Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Emergency Mode Operations strategies by providing offsite backup that can be geographically distant from the client site to minimize the likelihood of data loss in a large-scale disaster. In the event of loss of the primary data center, data on a Remote Backup Server can easily be recovered from any replacement data center.
The Client software contains all appropriate technical security mechanisms to protect the data that is transmitted to and from our Off-site Backup Servers.
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EXTRAS:
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Pricing General: Residential class service. Includes one (1) software license and 3,000 MB (3GB) of DATA server storage. Protects approximately 10,000 MB of uncompressed user data.
Notification Method: Emails, Success Notifications, Failed Notifications, Missed Backup Notifications, Over Quota Notifications.
Connection Speed: unavailable
Free Space Needed/System Requirements: unavailable
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