As part of a plan to strengthen its technical support capabilities, Remote Backup Systems, the leading developer of online backup software, is pleased to announce the promotion of Stephanie Wallace to the position of Support Coordination Manager, providing vital resources to the company’s entire network of service providers.

“Our technical team needed a new kind of manager to better coordinate activities and successes,” Rob Cosgrove, CEO noted, “Stephanie is a breath of fresh air for our providers. Her multitasking skills are the best I have ever seen. With her ability to juggle emailing, instant messaging, while talking on the phone is quite a sight. Stephanie has been with RBS for over a year now and has mastered each position with professionalism.”

RBS has also installed a new unified communications system that better links the two offices and will provide higher quality voice communications for customers and staff. Two additional engineers have been added to the support staff to significantly reduce the amount of time required to handle support cases.

Remote Backup Systems develops software and services for Online Backup Services who provide internet-based online backups to end users. Headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee with an engineering and technical office in Chennai, India, RBS has more than 8,500 Service Providers in more than 63 countries. RBackup Remote Backup is the most widely used subscription-based online backup software on the planet.

(Memphis, TN February 9, 2011) Remote Backup Systems [www.remote-backup.com], founders of the online backup industry and developers of the RBackup and Mercury OEM Online Backup platforms today announced the release of its latest software upgrade, RBackup Version 11.2.4, now available as a self-hosted commercial online backup solution for MSPs, VARs and other service providers.

On its website, www.remote-backup.com, Remote Backup Systems notes that RBackup v11.2.4 is an important maintenance release that also contains new features.

The biggest enhancement is the new VSS-based (Volume Shadow Copy) Open files solution. This replaces the OFA (Open Files Agent) driver functionality in previous versions.

Other notable enhancements included in this release improve BitBackup (their sub-file level backup technology), the Remote Management module, and the Client Installer. Support for the Italian language has also been added.

Software updates and upgrades issued by Remote Backup Systems are available to registered RBS Service Providers with active support subscriptions and can be downloaded from www.remote-backup.com/download.htm.

To promote the new release, Remote Backup Systems is also offering six months of free support with paid support renewals and extensions through February 18th. Orders can be placed on the company’s website, www.remote-backup.com, or over the phone with a sales representative by calling (800) 519-7643.

“We are excited about the new release. It comes just a few days after a major upgrade of our Web Manager and E-Commerce solutions for Online Backup,” said Rob Cosgrove, founder and CEO, “And we will have more big announcements in coming weeks.”

For more information on Remote Backup Systems and its product offerings, visit the company’s website www.remote-backup.com.

About Remote Backup Systems

Remote Backup Systems is the global leader in turnkey Online Backup solutions to MSPs, VARs, ISPs and Managed Hosting Providers, providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-three year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Rob Cosgrove’s latest book, The Online Backup Guide for Service Providers is available at Amazon.com and bookstores.

If you would like more information, or to schedule an interview with Rob Cosgrove, please phone Elizabeth Schultenover at (901) 405-1234 or email liz@remote-backup.com

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(Memphis, TN February 7, 2011) Remote Backup Systems [www.remote-backup.com], founders of the online backup industry and developers of the RBackup and Mercury OEM Online Backup platforms today announced the release of a new version of both its Web Manager and E-Commerce plugins which include enhanced features.

Released last year, the Web Manager for RBackup v11 places virtually all of RBackup’s server controls into an easy to use web console that can be operated from any computer. Tiered logins for Admin, Group Managers, and Users allow maximum flexibility in self-service, convenience and integration. The Web Manager PlugIn also comes with a client-facing website that can be customized and branded.

The E-Commerce PlugIn for RBackup v11 integrates with the Web Manager for a complete end-to-end web based solution for user registration, billing, credit card processing, software deployment, and tiered management. Accept credit card payments through Authorize.net, Payflo Pro, PayPal, and manual processing.

“RBackup version 11 with its Web Manager and E-Commerce PlugIns now provides a complete turnkey solution for starting a fully web-based Online Backup Service at an affordable price in record time,” said Cosgrove, “a couple of hours, usually.”

A Live Demonstration Server that includes RBackup Version 11, the feature-filled Web Manager PlugIn, and the E-Commerce PlugIn is available to test drive online at www.rbs-software.com and on the company’s website, www.remote-backup.com.

During the month of February, RBS is offering a 10% discount on all RBS products with a monthly coupon code. Coupon codes can be obtained at http://www.remote-backup.com/sendcoupon.htm. Other additional offers are available to Service Providers who are ready to upgrade to RBS from certain other online backup solutions.

This software upgrade is available at no cost to RBS Service Providers who have purchased the plugin and have a current support subscription. These plugins can be purchased from Remote Backup Systems’ website as add-ons for RBackup Version 11.

For more information on Remote Backup Systems and its product offerings, visit the company’s website www.remote-backup.com.

About Remote Backup Systems

Remote Backup Systems is the global leader in turnkey Online Backup solutions to MSPs, VARs, ISPs and Managed Hosting Providers, providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-three year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Rob Cosgrove’s latest book, The Online Backup Guide for Service Providers is available at Amazon.com and bookstores.

If you would like more information, or to schedule an interview with Rob Cosgrove, please phone Elizabeth Schultenover at (901) 405-1234 or email liz@remote-backup.com

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(Memphis, TN December 17, 2010) Remote Backup Systems [www.remote-backup.com], founders of the online backup industry and developers of the RBackup and Mercury OEM Online Backup platforms today announced the release of its latest software upgrade, RBackup Version 11.2, now available as a self-hosted commercial online backup solution for MSPs, VARs and other service providers.

Included in this maintenance release are Windows event logging, a Send Diagnostics button for the Client side eliminating the need to manually send logs and other reports to RBS for tech support, and added Support for Hungarian and French Canadian languages, as well as other various updates.

Also now available for purchase is a brandable Online Backup Estimator. The Online Backup Estimator will estimate the size of a full backup and subsequent daily backups and the time required to send them to your Server, based on the current upload speed of the Internet connection. It scans the file system using Best Practices for Include and Exclude settings and can be posted on a website to be used as a valuable professional business tool. This tool is available for purchase online at www.remote-backup.com.

In addition, Remote Backup Systems has pre-announced its development schedule for the public release of even more upgrades and products. Due out in the very near future is the highly anticipated RBSBMR, a stand-alone Bare Metal Backup/Restore utility, which will enable Service Providers to offer an onsite quick full-system DR solution as an add-on service.

Also due for release are updates for the popular Web Manager PlugIn, which places all server controls into an easy to use web console, as well as updates for the E-commerce PlugIn, both of which are already available for purchase.

“We have always prided ourselves on our aggressive commitment to ongoing development,” states RBS founder and CEO, Rob Cosgrove. “We are backup nerds with a sincere commitment to creating the most robust solution that addresses the needs and budgets of small to medium sized Service Providers.”

For more information on Remote Backup Systems and its product offerings, visit the company’s website www.remote-backup.com.

About Remote Backup Systems

Remote Backup Systems is the global leader in turnkey Online Backup solutions to MSPs, VARs, ISPs and Managed Hosting Providers, providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-three year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Rob Cosgrove’s latest book, The Online Backup Guide for Service Providers is available at Amazon.com and bookstores.

If you would like more information, or to schedule an interview with Rob Cosgrove, please phone Elizabeth Schultenover at (901) 405-1234 or email liz@remote-backup.com

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Have you decided not to renew your Maintenance Subscription? We’re sorry to hear that. We hope you will reconsider in the future. If you do, we would like to offer you a 10% discount on your next order as a “thank you” for taking a short survey that will help us improve our software and service.

(Memphis, TN USA 2/22/2010) Remote Backup Systems (RBS), the founders of the online backup industry and developers of the RBackup and Mercury OEM Online Backup platforms have released a free online tool developed for Service Providers to use to estimate the storage space needed by their clients, and the time required to do a backup.

 Addressing a major concern plaguing Service Providers for years, RBS Online Backup Estimator is a free download that calculates the size of a full backup and subsequent daily backups and the time required to send them to an Online Backup Server, based on the current upload speed of the Internet connection.

The Online Backup Estimator works by scanning the file system using the Best Practices for Include and Exclude settings as defined in Rob Cosgrove’s Online Backup Guide for Service Providers, published by Remote Backup Systems. Once the scan is complete, simply view the files selected. Use the Online Backup Estimator to fine tune Include/Exclude settings. The changes you make to the Include/Exclude settings can be written to a file to be used in your online backup software.

“Service Providers have told us about the different ways they have gone about dealing with this issue in the past,” explained Remote Backup Systems CEO, Rob Cosgrove. “Some chose to give away 30 day accounts, then quoting a price at the end of 30 days, after they have seen how much data their user’s store. Another method that wasn’t always convenient was to quote tiered storage plans that include storage space quotas, and per-gigabyte charges for going above the quotas. Our Online Backup Estimator tool was designed to simplify the equation and take the guesswork out of the quoting dilemma.”

 Although written specifically to assist licensed RBS Service Providers, the Online Backup Estimator is a free tool that anyone can download from the RBS website and works with all Online Backup software. The Online Backup Estimator is compatible with Windows and Mac.

 For more information about this tool and other Remote Backup Systems products, please visit www.remote-backup.com.

 About Remote Backup Systems Inc.

Remote Backup Systems offers turnkey Online Backup solutions starting at $500, capable of serving hundreds of thousands of end users. RBS is the global leader in providing turnkey online backup software solutions to MSPs, VARs, ISPs and Managed Hosting Providers, providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-one year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.

If you would like more information, or to schedule an interview with Rob Cosgrove, please phone Elizabeth Greenup at (901) 405-1234 or email liz@remote-backup.com

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Remote Backup Systems offers several similar products and services. This document will help you choose the one that is right for you.

The Products

RBackup is our powerful enterprise-level business software designed to back up Windows Servers and Workstations. It backs up MS Exchange at the brick level, SQL Server, System State, Active Directory, Sharepoint, and all locked files including Outlook .PST files.

 All versions of RBackup include full support for all Microsoft servers, including unlimited Exchange mailboxes and locked file support. There is no additional charge, and there are no mandatory ongoing fees for using the software. Pricing is simple, one-time, and all-inclusive.

 Mercury backs up Windows and Mac Workstations and Laptops. It includes the Remote Security Suite. It will not back up Windows servers. Mercury is designed to compete with the cheap $5/month services like Mozy® and Carbonite®, and has a similar feature set. Mercury is used for backing up personal computers and laptops, and not business computers.

If you need to back up Windows Servers, choose RBackup. If you want to offer personal backups for laptops and Macs, choose Mercury. Many Service Providers use both.

 RBackup

 Most Online Backup Service Providers buy RBackup. It can be self-hosted much less expensively than Mercury. The most common way we sell RBackup is as an outright software purchase on a perpetual license – the way most software is sold. So, you would purchase the software from RBS, install the Server module on your own computer, then distribute the Client module to your customers.

 The Client module automatically compresses and encrypts your customers’ data and transmits it to your Server module, where it is stored in its encrypted state. A complete list of features for all editions is here.

 RBackup is our most popular product. It is used by thousands of Service Providers in more than 64 countries, and millions of end users to service Windows computers in business and personal environments.  Here is a complete price list.

 All versions of RBackup come with at least one year of Basic Support. The higher client-count versions include more Support, extra PlugIns, and services like free installation. You can renew your Support after the first year. Support prices and options are here.

 RBackup can be enhanced with a variety of PlugIns and services. It can be fully integrated with your web site for automated credit card billing and order processing. All versions of RBackup can be fully branded and customized using a built-in branding utility that comes with the software.

 Mercury

 Most Service Providers offer Mercury Online Backup Services using our Virtual Hosting service because it is much cheaper than buying a Mercury Server. Mercury Servers can be purchased on a perpetual software license, leased, or “rented” on a per-client basis. Prices for purchasing a Mercury Server start at about $50,000. Here is technical information on Mercury.

 Virtual Hosting

 RBS offers Virtual Hosting for both RBackup and Mercury. Under our VH plans, RBS hosts the Server in our data center in Memphis. You can access and manage your client accounts through a web-based administrative portal. The Administrative Portal gives you a limited set of features compared to the self-hosted model, where you have access to the complete feature set.

 With all Virtual Hosting accounts, your Client software can be customized and branded with your company and product names, and your icons and graphics. Branding service is included in the startup fee.

 Virtual Hosting costs $500 to start up an account, then $1.50 per month for each client, and a per-gigabyte fee that ranges from $1.50 per gig down to $0.40 per gig (for RBackup accounts) and $0.40 per gig down to $0.24 per gig (for Mercury accounts).

 With Virtual Hosting accounts, you can charge your clients whatever prices you like, and pay RBS via pre-authorized credit card charge in arrears on the 15^th of each month.

 All Virtual Hosting accounts come with customizable web sites. Here is a price list. Here is more information on Virtual Hosting.

 Mercury Affiliate Accounts

 The Mercury Online Backup Service can also be sold through the Mercury Affiliate Program. This is a very low-cost program designed for professional Internet affiliates and for Service Providers who need a quick and cheap Mac solution or who want to offer the Remote Security Suite.

 Affiliate Accounts are priced at one-time fees of $49 to $349 depending on features. Affiliate account Client software cannot be branded, although the Client portal can, to a small extent. All Affiliate Accounts come with customizable websites.

 With Mercury Affiliate Accounts all customers are charged directly by RBS. On the 1^st and 15^th of every month we pay you a percentage of what we collect from your clients. With the higher-priced Affiliate Accounts you can control what price is charged to your customers, within a specified range.

 The Mercury Affiliate Program is a single-level program that pays you a percentage of the gross billing of your affiliates in addition to your own earnings.

 Here is complete information on Mercury Affiliate Accounts.

 How does RBS compare with other companies?

 RBS is the oldest and most mature company in the space. Our Service Providers are the most successful, and our pricing is the most affordable. Our CEO, Rob Cosgrove, founded the Online Backup industry in 1987 and actually wrote the book that defined it. If you are comparing RBS to other companies, please contact us and request a link to our Company and Product Comparison Page.

Remote Backup Systems (RBS) (www.remote-backup.com), the leader and founder of the online backup industry and developer of the RBackup and Mercury OEM Online Backup platforms, today announced it has lowered prices on Service Provider software editions of its award-winning software, as well as the costs associated with its Virtual Hosting service.

Concurrent with its latest most stable and mature software release, Version 10.1.73, RBS announced it was lowering prices on its most popular offerings, as much as 61% on certain packages.

A popular alternative to purchasing hardware and software to operate an Online Backup service has become RBS’ Virtual Hosting Service. This new pricing campaign includes lower storage and client license prices.

 In addition, Remote Backup Systems has also announced the implementation of its Lowest Price Guarantee.  This pricing warranty will not only ensure clients will get the lowest prices for comparable features every day, but it will also include and extend to specials, sales, and deals offered by recognized RBS competitors.

For more information about RBS pricing, visit www.remote-backup.com.

“We have learned over our decades of experience that as our industry grows and expands we must maintain the most flexibility. Changing economic conditions and more competitors lead our customers look for meaningful value and the best chance for profitability,” said Remote Backup Systems CEO Rob Cosgrove. “There’s no rule book to follow here but customer service extends farther than just being there to answer the phone. When the economy began looking bleak we put in a plan of action to stay afloat in order to serve them.  We were so successful in doing so, we can now reduce prices.”

Cosgrove goes on to say that his team is continually looking for ways to become more efficient by reducing costs and employing better technology in order to pass the savings on to customers.

RBS boasts all inclusive pricing, perpetual licensing, no mandatory recurring costs, and a simple to understand pricing structure. RBS has been in business longer than any of its competitors. Product features include unlimited Exchange mailboxes, mailbox-Level Restore, Locked Files, SQL Server, Sharepoint, Outlook, System State, Active Directory, and Full Client Remote Control.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.remote-backup.com, or contact the Sales Department at (901)405-1234.

About Remote Backup Systems

Remote Backup Systems Inc. is the global leader in providing turnkey online backup software solutions to businesses and IT Service providers. RBS defines success as providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-one year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.

If you would like more information on this topic, or to schedule an interview with Rob Cosgrove, please phone Elizabeth Greenup at (901) 405-1234 or email liz@remote-backup.com

                                                            -30-

The RBS News for December 2009 contains the following articles:

• How to Set Prices & Storage Plans, Predict Profits for your Online Backup Service
• Letter from the President
• News and Announcements
• Sales and Marketing Performance Tips
• Gautam’s Corner – our Lead Developer Answers Your Questions
• Service Providers with Premium Maintenance now have a FREE Remote Help tool…
• Are you considering another Online Backup Software Provider?
• RBS offers End User Tech Support
• The Mercury Affiliate Program

The newsletter is posted at this link:

http://remote-backup.com/rbsnews/2009/rbsnews0912.pdf

(Memphis, TN) Remote Backup Systems, the founders of the online backup industry and developers of the RBackup and Mercury OEM Online Backup platforms has announced that its new Mercury Online Backup platform will be available to sell as a pay-as-you-go hosted solution. With Mercury you can deploy a powerful, fully branded Online Backup service similar in features, functionality and price to Mozy® and Carbonite®.

Mercury runs on Windows and Mac, and is designed for inexpensive consumer backups. It is not designed for business use. Mercury is available in twenty languages, and is localizable. It runs on all versions of Mac OS-X and Windows 2000 and above.

Some of Mercury’s features include automatic updates, continuous backup, scheduled backup, web-based distribution, trial versions, web restore, fully integrated web payment and software deployment, and the amazing and exclusive Remote Security Suite.

The Remote Security Suite can remotely erase sensitive data from a stolen computer. It can also take pictures and record sound, send technical details and geolocation information that can help locate and recover a lost or stolen computer.

For more information on Mercury, visit www.mercurybackup.com.

“Many of our current Service Providers and investment prospects have been asking for this option for some time,” explained Rob Cosgrove, Remote Backup Systems CEO. “We are pleased to finally launch this service and are very excited about its future.”

Your Mercury Virtual Hosting account comes with a complete, customized and hosted website, a payment gateway, online credit card processing, a management console, a user console, and our new Remote HelpDesk.

You can start your Mercury Virtual Hosting account for $750, which includes customization and branding of your hosted website and the Mercury Online Backup Agent. You then pay RBS $2/client per month, and $0.50/GB per month, with a minimum of $100 per month.

For more additional information on Mercury, visit the Mercury Backup website at www.mercurybackup.com or phone RBS at (901) 388-5988.

About Remote Backup Systems Inc.

Remote Backup Systems offers turnkey Online Backup solutions starting at $500, capable of serving hundreds of thousands of end users. RBS is the global leader in providing turnkey online backup software solutions to MSPs, VARs, ISPs and Managed Hosting Providers, providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-one year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.

If you would like more information, or to schedule an interview with Rob Cosgrove, please phone Elizabeth Greenup at (901) 388-5988 or email liz@remote-backup.com

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July 27, 2009
Millions of High Speed Internet and FiOS Users Now Provided Access to Thousands of on-the-go, Wi-Fi Hot Spots Across the U.S.

NEW YORK, July 27 /PRNewswire/ – Verizon continues to enhance its broadband service capabilities for consumers to offer competitive advantages over rival communication providers.

Since the beginning of the …

Whether or not to outsource your disaster recovery (DR) or create a DR site in-house can be a tough decision. Learn about the pros and cons of outsourcing disaster recovery.

This item provided by GigaOM

Data retention isn’t just something larger enterprises can afford to worry about; it’s also important for SMBs to have data retention policies and procedures in place.

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco

Posted in Small Biz, 8th June 2009 20:02 GMT

A large internet service provider said data for as many as 100,000 websites was destroyed by attackers who targeted a zero-day vulnerability in a widely-used virtualization application.

<a href=”http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/08/webhost_attack/”></a>

June 07, 2009

Hamburg, Germany – A US aviation expert, commenting on the possible loss of the black boxes in the Air France crash, is proposing that flight data be automatically transmitted via satellite to a backup system, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reports. In its edition to appear on newsstands …

This item provided by Online Backup Review

By Ashish Nadkarni

E-Commerce Times 
June 03, 2009 

There’s only one way to keep data storage costs under control, and that’s to get rid of unnecessary data. That may go against the grain of IT managers who rightly consider backup and preservation as critical to an organization’s health, but when it comes to data storage, there are ways to separate what’s useful from what’s disposable.

It should come as no surprise to any IT manager that your organization’s appetite for data keeps growing every minute. No sooner than a new set of storage tools is deployed, it becomes clear there’s a need for more, and you start planning the next wave of hardware purchases. More hardware means more floor space, power and cooling — it’s a vicious circle.

The total amount of disk storage shipped last year grew 40.5 percent from 2007, according to a recent study by IDC. If you imagine that this appetite for consumption is going to be questioned at some point in the interest of trying to curtail the IT carbon footprint, then you are not alone. Of course, there is no smoking gun, but there are choices you can make to get rid of unwanted data and free up space. That precious space can then be utilized for other purposes, thereby limiting the amount of new storage capacity to be purchased.

Before getting into “slice and dice” mode, it’s important to define what, exactly, is the goal? The goal is to ensure that spinning disk, i.e., online disk storage, is used for storing data that is really valuable to the organization. Any data that is not — and it could be in any shape or form — needs to be appropriately disposed of. Disposal could mean simply deleting it, or it could mean archiving it in another medium, either a magnetic medium such as tape, or an optical medium such as DVD or CD ROM.

Low-Hanging Fruit

What kind of data can be disposed of? Most often, the kind of data that is “time classified” or unstructured …

Please click here to continue reading this article

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Data leakage and data loss is at an all time high. USBs, or memory sticks, which are now used to download and transport large amounts of sensitive data, may be largely to blame. A recent survey by Texas-based data security experts Credant Technologies found that, in the last year, 9,000 USB sticks have been forgotten in pockets when people take their clothes to the local dry cleaners.

The survey was carried out in the United Kingdom (UK) to gauge the frequency and ease with which mobile devices such as USB and memory sticks are lost or forgotten in strange places such as dry cleaners. The survey was also designed as a warning to be vigilant when downloading information, as it does frequently get lost.

A similar survey was conducted by Credant Technologies recently amongst taxi drivers in London and New York and showed that over 12,500 handheld devices such as laptops, iPods, and memory sticks are forgotten at the back of taxis every six months.

Michael Callahan, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Credant Technologies, stated, “Although we conducted this survey in the UK, the idea was to show people everywhere how easy it is to lose data — even in their local dry cleaners — and that none of us are infallible. We’re convinced if we were to do the same survey in the US we’d get very similar results. If the data is sensitive or valuable then people should protect this information with encryption so no one can access the data at any point, as it could easily end up in the wrong hands.”

According to the survey, many mobile devices now have the capacity to store as much as 10,000 documents, 11,000 pictures, 500,000 contact details, or 1.1 million emails, making them an obvious target for identity theft criminals…

Sifting Through Online Backup Service Options
Byteandswitch.com, NY - 1 hour ago

… strategy- possibly remote and branch offices and remote and mobile workers,” said Lauren Whitehouse, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) . …

This item provided by ATA Latest News

The Top 7 Online-Backup Tools
IT Management, CA - 1 hour ago

But now, online-backup services are poised for a corporate growth spurt, according to an IDC (International Data Corp.) research report released in January. …

This item provided by ATA Latest News

In my coverage of business continuity and disaster recovery, I talk to both IT infrastructure and operations professionals as well as IT security professionals and I’ve found that the term "data protection" means something different to each. This comes as no surprise and I think for a long time it didn’t really matter because IT operations and security professionals operated in independent silos. But as silos break down and "data protection" is a shared responsibility across the organization, it’s important to be specific and to understand who is responsible for what.

For IT operations professionals, "data protection" means creating a duplicate copy of data for the purposes of restore/recovery in the event data is destroyed due to a total site failure (i.e. flood takes out your data center), system failure, drive failure, accidental deletion etc. You can create a duplicate copy of your data either locally or at a remote location via backup, snapshot, replication etc. You are protecting your data from destruction. This is why backup companies such as CommVault, EMC, IBM Tivoli, HP, and Symantec (the former Veritas) refer to their backup applications and other offerings as "data protection software." The name of HP’s backup application is HP Data Protector. Ironically, these "data protection" offerings sometimes make your data less secure because it is backed or replicated to tape or over the Internet to another site in a clear text format. Which is why all these vendors now offer the ability to encrypt the data as it’s backed up to tape or replicated.

For IT security professionals, the term "data protection" means ensuring that only authorized individuals have the appropriate level of access to your organization’s sensitive data and that all access is tracked for audit. You deploy perimeter security, end-point secruity, data encryption etc. to "protect" your data from breaches, "leakage," crimeware/malware, physical theft etc. Thus we have security vendors and offerings such as McAfee’s Total Protection For Data and Mobile Armor’s Data Protection Suite.

You could argue that holistic data protection requires both recoverability and security and I would agree. Data storage is one area where IT operations professionals and security professionals need to work more closely together particularly in the area of encryption and secure data erasure. Right now, storage architects and administrators are evaluating new data storage encryption functionality available in tape drives, appliances, storage networks, disk drives, and path failover software. They’re also looking at secure data erasure services from the major storage vendors. These are services that ensure the data is wiped clean before an entire storage array or individual disk drive is returned to the vendor or to an asset disposal company and refurbished.

I’d be interested to know whether the term "data protection" has led to any confusion in IT shops and also how well security professionals know about the vulnerabilities in enterprise disk storage and tape and if storage teams are relying on their expertise to solve some of the challenges.

This item provided by The Forrester Blog For Security & Risk Professionals

(Corrected 29  Jan 2009)

You see them everywhere – advertisements for companies like Mozy and Carbonite who offer to back up your personal computer for $5 a month, often offering “unlimited” storage space. So, how does a small Online Backup company compete? The answer is: Don’t.

As a small Online Backup Service Provider with, say, fewer than 1,000 accounts, you most likely cannot afford to sell services to home users for $5 a month; nor should you want to.

If you have 5,000 or more accounts, then of course the economy of scale works in your favor. With the right plan and the right marketing, you might be able to profitably approach $5/month and address the home market. But let’s just say for the sake of this discussion, you have fewer than 250 accounts.

Two hundred and fifty accounts at $5/month would gross out at $1250 a month, or $15,000 a year. I don’t know about you, but for the trouble of giving 250 customers an adequate level of service while maintaining your equipment and trying to turn a profit, I am not at all interested in this business. I’m not even interested at $10/month, or $15/month.

However, at $19.99 a month I’m bringing in $60,000 a year and beginning to show a little interest. At $29.99 a month I’m making $90K; and at a very reasonable $89.99 a month for the kind of business-class service I can offer with RBackup, I am VERY entertained by my $270,000 a year from my loyal group of 250 small business customers.

Now, please understand that I am not trashing the $5/month services. In high enough numbers, $5/month can make money.

In a “Fireside Chat” sponsored by Future Forward (FutureForward.com) on Nov 23 2008 David Friend, CEO of Carbonite (one of the $5/month services) said that he has more than 15 billion files in storage. He spends about $50 to acquire each new customer, and charges $49.95 per year for his service. He says he keeps each customer for 4.5 years, so, David is paying $50 for $225. I’ll do that all day long.

David claims his average customer retention period is 4.5 years, although I wonder about that. Carbonite was founded in 2005 (PRNewswire Nov 20 2008), so he’s only been in business about 3 years.

ED. Update (29 Jan 2009) In a response to another blog posting, David shows he’s smarter than I am by explaining the following:

“In a recurring revenue business like Carbonite (or Netflix, or any subscription business) you estimate the lifetime of a customer based on the percent of people who renew at the end of each year. If 80% of your customers renew after one year, your average customer will be with you for about 4.1 years. If the renewal rate is 90%, then the average customer will be with you for 7.6 years. And so on. You don’t have to wait until the end of four years to know what your average customer lifetime is. You know it after one year, assuming nothing changes in the future.”

David says he spends a million dollars a month on advertising. So, at $50 per customer, and discounting referrals, Carbonite must be signing up more than 22,000 customers a month, none of whom have dropped the service.

Personally, I’m skeptical. But, we know from Relativity Theory that with numbers as large as David’s, normal mathematics breaks down. So, maybe it’s possible to wormhole four and a half years into three. (ED: I’m sorry about this comment. See Dave’s explanation above.)

Now, David is a smart guy – a serial entrepreneur with many successes under his belt. He has been able to attract many millions of dollars in venture capital for Carbonite. So, not only does Dave believe in $5/month services, so do a lot of other smart people with a lot of money.

So sure, there’s gold in them thar little customers – but only in large numbers. My advice is to leave them to Mozy and Carbonite, and move on to the far more lucrative small business market.

Here at Remote Backup Systems, we know that backing up business computers isn’t just clicking a link, paying your money, and that’s that. Small businesses are a huge and lucrative part of the market. They need someone to design the proper backup strategy and protocol for their specific needs; then install and test the service, monitor it, test regularly, and change settings it as businesses evolve.

Small businesses need software capable of being programmed and configured EXACTLY for their specific and individual needs. They need support for Exchange and SQL Server, for open files and Domain Controllers.

Five-dollar-a-month services simply can’t do that.

However, eighty-nine dollars a month buys RBackup software and a service that has been in use by millions of businesses for two decades, designed specifically for businesses, that in the hands of a skilled backup expert, can be engineered on the spot to back up exactly how each customer needs to be backed up.

For $89/month you get a full service live expert who can help you properly manage your backups, software that backs up open files, Exchange, SQL Server, System State, Active Directory, and all your special business files. Your files will be 100% secure, signed, sub-file backed up, washed, dried, and delivered on a silver platter.

Small businesses need, and are willing to pay for, expert advise, hands-on support, a phone call, and the feeling of safety and security knowing that there’s a live person they can call, who is personally looking after their business data 24/7.

If a business customer asks you to compare your service to those charging $5/month, you are welcome to recite the above six paragraphs. Be sure to stand up strait, pull up your socks, and look offended while you do.

The most lucrative Online Backup Service providers I work with have grown by concentrating on one or two niche markets at a time. Learn about the kinds of data Dentists (for example) need to back up. How long do they need to keep the data? What regulations do they need to comply with?

Who does backups now? How are they done? Who makes decisions regarding business services like yours? Become an expert in backing up dental offices, then go out and back them up. When you have one customer, ask him for referrals. Then ask the referrals for referrals.

Even if you don’t ask for a referral, you can say, “I’d like to ask for a minute of your time to come show you how to come into compliance with HIPAA regarding your practice data, save money on computer backups, and even save your practice from disaster by backing up your data offsite over the Internet. I’ve installed such a system for Dr. Jones.”

The future looks very bright for Online Backup Services. I wouldn’t worry about Mozy or Carbonite or any of those $5/month services. With the right software, you have the wind in your sails and smooth seas if you sell your services on expertise, service, and market niche rather than on price.

Perhaps because of the gloomy economy, we are looking at only the tip of the online backup iceberg. Businesses are looking for ways to scale back, and they are scared. Rather than buy that expensive backup device and software, and learn how to use it, they’ll sign up for an online backup service that lets them rest easily at night.

Show them how much they are paying to do inadequate and dangerous manual backups now, and how much they are risking to do so. Calculate the monetary cost of manual backups using network down-time, tapes, salaries for someone to do backups, maintenance on the drive, etc. Tell them the dangers (and possible legalities) of taking unencrypted tapes out of the office and leaving them in the car. You know, all the usual sales tactics.

Forget the economy. It works in our favor. We are in a recession-friendly business, with an unlimited supply of willing customers who are now seeking us out to pay $89/month (and more) for a service that someone (Not you!) is spending millions of dollars a month to promote. How sweet is that? Our customers stay with us month after month, year after year, allowing us to ROI in far less time than other businesses that are as quick and inexpensive to start. I love this stuff.

There’s now more room than ever for companies entering the market, and our part of the market is not particularly price sensitive.

I can absolutely tell you, strait from the front lines, that the online backup market is not now, nor will it ever be, saturated. New computers are coming online too fast for us to keep up with them. Storage is moving online faster than I can produce new Online Backup Services. Niche markets are opening up quicker than I can produce software to fill them.

The pool of customers to draw from is getting larger and more diverse. The big guys are spending millions of dollars convincing our customers that Online Backup is a great solution. As a result, more businesses than ever are signing up.

Five dollars a month? You don’t have time for it. Be sure to thank Mozy and Carbonite on your way to the bank.

About Rob Cosgrove

Rob Cosgrove is CEO of Remote Backup Systems, Inc., and the founder of the Online Backup industry.

About Remote Backup Systems Inc.

Remote Backup Systems Inc. is the global leader in providing turnkey online backup software solutions to businesses and IT Service providers. RBS defines success as providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-one year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.

product management for the Symantec Protection Network, explains the various strategies solution providers can employ to create an online service for backup. Host: Mike Vizard Length: 00:18:19 ‘You can listen to this ePodcast at: Check out .com for the

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those working within a supply chain, retailer driven just-in-time ordering demands 24/7 availability. Losing the server that manages online customer orders may not just have a short term impact on business productivity but may potentially result in the

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Symantec Corp. announces recently that a new independent study finds that small and medium businesses (SMB) rate backup as their second-highest computing priority, after defense against viruses and other malware, and ahead of issues such as reducing

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A letter from Rob Cosgrove, President of Remote Backup Systems, Inc.

The public’s need for online backup services is expanding very rapidly right now. Various storage industry analysts, including IDC, ESG, Frost & Sullivan and others, predicted this upsurge in the market, and its continued growth through 2011.

The public’s demand for online backup services is currently gaining momentum while the rest of the economy is slowing down. This is a frustrating convergence of circumstances that makes it more difficult for small companies to start an online backup business at exactly the best time to do so.

So, I am announcing our Remote Backup Stimulus Package, reducing our prices by as much as half. We will maintain our new lower prices until the economy recovers. This price cut makes our solution (by far) the most affordable in the industry, and it will make our service providers the most profitable.

We have also recently announced several new products, and upgrades to our current products. More new product announcements will come in the next few weeks. RBS and our entire staff are committed to the success of the industry and to that of our Service Providers.

By reducing prices, RBS hopes to lower the barrier for smaller companies who want to enter the online backup market at this critical growth stage in the industry, and to improve the growth of its current customers.

However, companies like Mozy and Carbonite offer end-user solutions that often do not fit the diverse needs of small businesses. We want to make it easier for our service providers and emerging small companies to service the higher-profit small businesses that need a custom solution instead of some $5/month one-size-fits-all Band-Aid approach.

With our Remote Backup Stimulus Package, we hope to guide more businesses profitably through these temporary rough economic times to make the most of the mushrooming market for online backup services.

For more information, and our new prices, can be found at http://remote-backup.com/products.htm. We will also be happy to answer questions for you, if you would like to phone us at 901-388-5988.

Regards,
Rob Cosgrove, CEO
Remote Backup Systems, Inc.

(Memphis, TN October 30 2008) Remote Backup Systems, the founder of the Online Backup industry, today announced the release of RBackup version 10.1, which is capable of running in Amazon’s recently out-of-beta Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Amazon’s EC2 provides a robust and affordable framework for hosting RBackup servers from 25 clients to hundreds of thousands. The framework can be scaled as needed to support increasing client counts and increased storage space needs.

“Our Service Providers asked us to come up with a solution to the problems inherent in their rapidly expanding businesses – how to scale up affordably as their customers increased along with their storage needs,” explained Rob Cosgrove, president and founder of Remote Backup Systems, “(Amazon) EC2 provides a solution that we think will fit a certain percentage of our Service Providers.”

Remote Backup Systems supports 8,400 online backup service providers with software, services, and consulting. Founded in 1985, the company developed and published the first remote backup software and defined the basic RBS protocol used around the world.

“Most of our Service Providers will probably stick with their own data centers and hardware,” said Cosgrove, “but for many of them, especially the ones just starting out, EC2 provides a lower cost of entry, with a much quicker startup.”

RBS provides an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that fully installs a complete RBS Server on Amazon, complete with Windows 2003 Server, SQL Server, and the RBS Server software. The result is a fully operational RBS Server online and ready to use in less than 10 minutes.

For more information, see the company’s website at http://remote-backup.com

About Remote Backup Systems Inc.

Remote Backup Systems Inc. is the global leader in providing turnkey online backup software solutions to businesses and IT Service providers. RBS defines success as providing leading edge functionality, best-in-class customer support, and an unwavering commitment to product quality and customer satisfaction. With a twenty-one year history in Remote Backup technologies, RBS is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.

If you would like more information on this topic, or to schedule an interview with Rob Cosgrove, please phone Maria Benton at (901) 388-5988 or email maria@remote-backup.com

-30-

Thanks to Rob Cosgrove of Remote Backup Systems for taking time out from his busy schedule to participate in this interview. His story is fascinating. If you have an interest in any of  the following you will love this. Cars, record breaking, world firsts, online backup , I.T. pioneers, flying, life, enthusiasm and predictions for the future.

Read the interview here.

Mercury Online Backup

I introduced my latest Online Backup project, codenamed “Mercury”, back on June 23. Since then I realized that if I wanted Mercury to be able to beat the likes of Mozy on both price and features, Mercury would have to do more, and do it better. It would also have to use a different business and technical model.

For Service Providers to be able to compete with the likes of Mozy by selling Online Backup services based on Mercury (either hosted with RBS or hosted independently) I needed to know more about the types of customers attracted to those kinds of services. So I did a little (OK, a lot) of digging.

I’ve spent the last few months studying the industry that I created way back in 1986. I have interviewed a lot of people about their computer usage habits, their price points, their needs. I’ve been testing features and business models based on my research. I studied the end users who were likely to buy Mercury, based on price and platform (Mercury runs on both Windows and Mac – and soon Linux) and I think I’ve come up with a paradigm shift in the way Online Backup will be thought about in the future.

I’m positioning Mercury for Workstations, laptops, home computers, and small office computers that don’t need special Server agents like those in my flagship product, RBackup. My team has made it as simple as it can be, with a cool Web interface, a lightening fast Oracle back-end, leading-edge Web Services, and a really light Client (about 6MB), and NATIVE code for Windows, Mac, and Linux. No Java, no PHP, no PERL, I’m talking about native code here. So Mercury is extremely fast and powerful, hooking the operating systems directly.

End users buy Online Backup for security. So why not give them MORE security? At this level consumers have a number of choices, most of which are capable of backing up and restoring files. However, NONE have what Mercury has – a full suite of amazing security gadgets that you may not have heard of (yet). Some of this stuff is just amazing.

Suppose your laptop is stolen. Sure, with other products you can restore your files to another computer. Mercury can do that, too, so what? Your laptop is still missing, and so are all your valuable files with personal information like credit card numbers, company data, and maybe even data covered by government security and privacy regulations like HIPAA, SOX, and GLB. Maybe your competitor took your computer. Your company could be subject to massive fines and loss of business. You could be fired.

Mercury can solve even those problems.

• Mercury can help locate your stolen laptop without an onboard GPS.
• Mercury can use your laptop’s onboard camera to snap a picture of the thief and upload it silently as soon as he/she opens it up.
• Mercury can protect your computer’s files from being opened and the data itself stolen.
• Mercury can silently and quickly encrypt your files by remote, or shred them with military-grade file erasure technology.
• Mercury can even format your hard drive by remote as a last resort.
• Yes, Mercury can even back up and restore your files.

Can any other product of any type do that? I think not.

That’s why Mercury is going to kick other “backup only” products in its class back to 2005 where they came from. All these cool features (and many more) are completely under the control of the user through an innovative web-based interface.

What’s the current state of Mercury? So far Mercury has been deployed to two companies who host their own Mercury servers. RBS will soon be ready to service customers with Mercury using a business model similar to that of our Virtual Hosting service for our flagship product, RBackup. I’m not releasing a date for that just yet.

As an interesting side note – So far the companies using Mercury have signed up thousands of paying customers at about $5/month. A little under half of them are using Macs. That’s a huge percentage of users compared to the normal distribution of Macs in the environment. I think it indicates the lack of any adequate backup service for the Mac, and may be a key driver for Mercury.

End users are going to pay well for Mercury, and Service Providers (even small ones) are going to make money. But, Mercury won’t be as cheap as RBackup. A significant capital investment will be required to host Mercury servers, at least $50,000 for minimal equipment; And the software customization, installation, licensing and maintenance fees as well. Don’t forget hosting fees. I can’t see Mercury licensing going for less than $30,000 for a 10,000 client Server, plus client license fees on top of that.

I don’t have exact pricing for Mercury yet. Contact me for a demo if your company is interested in Mercury technology, and is well qualified to purchase it. Watch the RBS web site at http://remote-backup.com for more information and a release date.

Rob Cosgrove

CEO, Remote Backup Systems, Inc.

Memphis, TN USA

(901) 388-5988

Offsite backup, also known as remote backup, is the process of backing up important computer data and files to a server or other storage device located in a separate physical location. Typically, offsite backup or remote backup software is installed on the resource which houses the original data store. Files are selected, a schedule is set, and the offsite backup begins, typically with an initial “full” backup to the offsite server.

Once the full backup has run, offsite backup software usually enables the user to switch to incremental backups afterwards. Incremental offsite backup sessions contain only the changed files, or changes within those files, instead of entire new versions of the changed files.

Other benefits of incremental offsite backup include a fairly dramatic reduction in bandwidth usage as compared to full backups. Less bandwidth is used because less data is being sent from the client to the offsite backup server in each session. Since most offsite backups occur during off hours, or at night when computers are not being used, bandwidth and system resources are not at a premium.

Hard disk space on the offsite backup server is also conserved, as only the changes are transferred to the offsite server with each session.

Remote Backup Systems ( http://remote-backup.com ) is a great resource for information about offsite backup and remote backup software. RBS created the world’s first commercial offsite backup software in 1987, and has been developing and marketing remote online backup software since then.

More information can be found at http://remote-backup.com

By Chris Preimesberger - A new study confirms what a great many people in IT already suspected: Companies of all sizes are vulnerable to costly and damaging e-mail outages because they trust their messaging infrastructure to a single server and do not have an adequate backup and recovery plan in case of a disaster.

ApplicationContinuity.org surveyed 434 IT professionals responsible for e-mail continuity in small (0-99 employees), medium (100-999 employees) and large (1,000 or more employees) enterprises. ResearchCorp.org provided the analysis.
Only 21 percent of respondents have implemented a disaster avoidance strategy, while 29 percent of midsized companies are operating with only a single Exchange server, and have no application continuity plan in place.

 [Read the article on EWeek.com]

By JIM SALTER, AP Business Writer

ST. LOUIS – Charter Communications officials believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts.

There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that were erased from inboxes and archive folders across the country on Monday, said Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the suburban St. Louis-based company.

“We really are sincerely sorry for having had this happen and do apologize to all those folks who were affected by the error,” Lamont said Thursday when the company announced the gaff.

Charter, one of the nation’s largest cable TV operators, also provides telephone and high-speed Internet service. It has applied a $50 credit to the bill of each customer whose account was affected by the mistake, Lamont said.

[Read the Article Here]

By Mary Jander, Byte and Switch

An unencrypted backup tape missing from an Iron Mountain storage facility has forced a major credit card company that specializes in online credit protection to contact hundreds of thousands of customers.

GE Money, a Stamford, Conn.-based subsidiary of General Electric that manages credit card transactions for retailers, acknowledges that backup data on 650,000 people, including employees of GE Money as well as customers of about 230 U.S. retailers that use GE Money’s services, is now lost.

Iron Mountain claims to have discovered the error when the service provider went to find the tape in an Iron Mountain vault at the request of GE Money in October. When the tape couldn’t be found, Iron Mountain says it immediately notified GE Money and launched a search.

GE Money says it has no evidence the tape was stolen or that the data on it has been accessed. The company says it’s offered “some individuals whose information is included on the unencrypted tape” a year of free credit-monitoring service.

Additional steps are also being taken by GE Money to “prevent situations like this from occurring in the future.” But what those steps are isn’t being specified.

GE Money spokesman Richard Jones says his company has no comment on the fact that the tape was unencrypted.

GE Money specializes in secure online transactions, identity theft protection, and protection against online scams. As part of its personal credit card services, for instance, customers have the option of credit activity monitoring, with email or pager notification in case of suspicious activity. GE Money also offers a fraud resource center and identity theft reimbursement coverage of up to $5,000 for individual cardholders.

Iron Mountain spokesman Dan O’Neill says his company’s convinced the information on the tape hasn’t compromised anyone’s credit. He refers to Iron Mountain’s public statement on the matter: “We believe this is an unfortunate case of a misplaced tape… Since we notified GE Money of the missing back-up tape in October, there has been no evidence to suggest that any person’s identity has been compromised as a result. And we don’t know of any incident, ever, when a lost back-up tape has resulted in identity theft. We regret this mishap and the concern and inconvenience it has caused GE Money and its customers.”

Both Iron Mountain and GE Money claim that the backup tape would be nearly impossible for someone without special training and equipment to crack, despite its being unencrypted.

By Grayson Kamm, First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL — The target may be high-tech, but the emotion involved is as old as humanity. Spite, anger, and revenge. Police say that’s what filled a woman’s heart after she picked up the classified ads.

When Marie Cooley came across a job that looked like hers in the classifieds, she admits she was certain she was about to be fired.

So police say late Sunday night, she crept into the Mandarin office where she worked at Steven E. Hutchins Architects.

“She decided to go and mess up everything for everybody,” said Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ken Jefferson.

Jefferson says Cooley accessed the company’s server with her own account. And with a handful of mouse clicks and keystrokes, he says she deleted seven years’ worth of architectural drawings.

Seven years of work — gone in seconds.

The company put the value of the vaporized files at $2.5 million.

“She decided to be spiteful and go in and sabotage the records. And she did a very good job of that,” Jefferson said.

According to police, Cooley confessed to the crime. It’s a second degree felony that could lay the blueprints for a five-year prison sentence.

Folks at the architecture firm didn’t want to talk on camera about the disastrous deletion.

The owner did tell First Coast News that he’s paid good money to recover those files and he says he’s now managed to get every deleted drawing back from its digital death.

“The lesson to be learned here is that you can’t depend on having just one set of records or files and having your employees have access to them. You’ve got to have some kind of backup,” Jefferson said.

And here’s the most sobering part: the owner of the architecture firm says Marie Cooley was not going to be fired. He says the job listing was for his wife’s business — not his.