The Difference Between a SMART Online Backup and a DUMB One
by Mitch Romm
In the past, I’ve written about the “S.M.A.R.T.” backup service Dr.Backup clients enjoy.
SMART is an acronym for the major service components of a professionally managed backup service. These include Setup, Monitoring, Alerting, Restoring and Testing.
Mitch Romm, Managing Partner
Dr. Backup, Laurel, MD
These services, in addition to powerful software technology and secure online storage, are what helps ensure Dr.Backup personnel can restore your data in the event of an emergency.
Delivering a SMART backup service is not easy!
Not only do we need to make sure your backup operates…we also need to make sure it runs WITHOUT fail and WITHOUT the type of errors that would compromise the integrity of a data RESTORE.
It takes a highly-trained team of technicians to detect and fix regularly occurring software problems found in today’s modern computer systems. Ignoring these problems virtually ensures data loss will occur down the road.
Realistically speaking, there is simply no way that “Joe the Plumber” can be expected to understand the complexity associated with properly backing up his SQL-based 24-hour customer dispatch database application!
Yet every day, average business users like Joe, will go to the web and purchase the cheapest “Do-it-yourself User Managed Backup” offering they can find. What’s ironic is that the acronym for these types of products is “D.U.M.B.”
A DUMB backup solution is one that is installed by an untrained person, is not regularly monitored, does not alert when a problem occurs, may not restore all your data, and once installed is assumed to be working perfectly…until it is really needed.
Rarely is a DUMB backup the data insurance a BUSINESS needs.
Most folks don’t realize that the cost difference between a SMART and DUMB backup is often less than $1 per day.
Think about it. If just one person in the office can be persuaded to skip their morning cup of Java, those savings alone will pay for a professional online backup company to deliver SMART online backups.
Mitchell Romm is the Managing Partner of Dr.Backup, a managed online backup service company based in Laurel, MD – on the web at www.drbackup.net. Since 2001, Dr.Backup has successfully completed over 4,000,000 S.M.A.R.T. backups for its clients using Remote Backup Systems technology.
