May 19th, 2012
When you use Google services, you trust Google with your most sensitive information: Emails, contacts, calendars–the works. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, quite a bit. Google is not infallible, and even if it were, users can make mistakes. Spanning Backup ($3 per month for regular Google accounts users) is a cloud backup service that keeps a copy of all of your Google data and lets you restore it selectively should important data ever go missing.
 Spanning Backup offers a beautiful dashboard showing at a glance how your backups are doing.Spanning Backup is also available for Google Apps users, at a cost of $2.50 per user per month. I tested the service with my paid Google Apps account, and integration couldn’t be easier: I simply granted Spanning Backup access to my domain, and that was it. I didn’t even have to type in my Google Apps password, or any other password for that matter.
The information Spanning Backup saves is extensive: Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts, right down to contact images. All information is saved over the cloud, onto Spanning Backup’s own servers. You don’t get to download any of it to your own computer, and you can only restore it to the account from which it was backed up.
Speaking of restoration, the data restoration interface leaves a lot to be desired. To test Spanning Backup, I deleted a Google contact. When I tried to restore it, Spanning Backup presented me with a list of backup timestamps showing the dates of recent successful backups. Not ideal, but not too confusing: I clicked the latest successful backup, taken before I deleted the contact. I expected Spanning to show me contacts deleted or modified since that backup was made. Instead, it let me pick a contact group to restore–and it wasn’t the group the contact I deleted was in. After hunting around the snapshot list for a snapshot that contained the group I needed, I ended up clicking the earliest snapshot thinking that snapshot surely has the contact I need.
Spanning Backup then proceeded to restore all of my contacts, even those that were not deleted, creating over 360 duplicate contacts. I realized this had happened when all my contacts started showing up twice on my Android phone, though at first I thought something must be wrong with the phone. It turns out this is not a bug, but a feature: Spanning Backup calls this “non-destructive restore,” and it means Spanning Backup never deletes your existing contacts when it restores an old backup, even if duplicates are created. All contacts restored are put into a group showing they were restored, so you can extract the contacts you need, and then delete all other contacts in the group. This makes sense, but it also requires good familiarity with Gmail’s groups interface and can be confusing otherwise.
 Spanning Backup’s calendar restoration interface focuses on snapshots, and leaves much to be desired.The same thing happened when I tried to restore a calendar event: Spanning created a new calendar with the event I restored. While I understand why this is necessary, it was confusing at the time. If Spanning Backup sent an automated email explaining what’s going on when you restore something, that could help alleviate the confusion.
Contrary to my experience with Contacts and Calendar, Spanning Backup’s Gmail interface was brilliant. The interface shows a mirror image of the regular Gmail interface, with the same label tree and conversation headers. To test it, I deleted a conversation in Gmail (sent it to the Bin), and then deleted it from the Bin. Normally, once you do this, the conversation really is gone for good. I then located the conversation on Spanning (without having to deal with snapshots), and clicked Restore. Within moments, the conversation previously “deleted forever” was back in my inbox, with a label showing it was restored by Spanning Backup. That was a satisfying moment indeed.
Spanning Backup gets a lot of things right: The price, the easy setup, and the brilliant Gmail interface. If that same visual simplicity makes it to the Calendar, Contacts, and Docs restoring interfaces, Spanning Backup would be a truly exceptional service.
Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can use this Web-based software.
–Erez Zukerman
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May 19th, 2012
 StraTech will provide CoLoCSX customers with backup and disaster recovery services
Colocation provider CoLoCSX announced on Friday that it will offer customers data backup and recovery services from managed services provider StraTech.
According to the press release, the companies have worked together since 1997 as StraTech provided support services and consulting for internal CoLoCSX technology projects. As customers needs have changed, the partnership has adapted to meet them.
A brand of Midas Medici Group Holdings, StraTech will provide CoLoCSX customers with its StratTech Remote Backup Service, RapidAlert Monitoring, and disaster recovery services.
CoLoCSX is based in Jacksonville, and since hurricane season in South Florida runs from June 1 to November 30, managed data backup and disaster recovery services are crucial for businesses in this area. In January, Colo5 expanded its Jacksonville data center.
“Partnering with StraTech allows us to offer colocation customers the highest standard in reliable, scalable managed services that address key IT challenges,” CoLoCSX general manager Ron Macomb said in a statement. “With these services, our customers can focus resources on core business activities while minimizing capital investments.”
StraTech says it provides its customers with IT risk assessment and IT risk management services to provide a custom approach to disaster recovery.
RapidAlert allows systems management staff to remotely access, troubleshoot and maintain thousands of heterogeneous devices through a single interface. It works 24×7 to monitor the day-to-day activities to keep business systems available. Its available for Solaris, Linux and Windows OS servers.
StraTech Remote Backup Service is powered by FIPS 140-2 certified agentless cloud backup solution that provides automatic backup of heterogeneous file servers as well as application and database servers with encrypted offsite data storage and rapid online restoration.
A year ago Midas Medici Group Holdings completed the acquisition of colocation provider Consonus Technologies.
Talk back: What backup services do your customers ask for? Do you partner with a managed services provider to offer the backup and disaster recovery? Let us know in a comment.
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May 17th, 2012
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Backupify, the leading provider of online backup services for cloud application data, today announced the rising number of educational institutions choosing Backupify to protect confidential administration, teacher and student data stored inside Google Apps Education Edition. According to information released by Google in October 2011, 15 million users at educational organizations worldwide are using Google Apps Education Edition which represented an 80 percent year-over-year increase.
Decision makers inside IT departments at educational organizations recognize that cloud-based applications bring productivity and collaboration into the classroom for a wide range of activities — from teacher class plans to student assignments. Migration to the cloud is also helping these organizations cope with rising costs by allowing administrators to schedule automated backups and eliminating other manual, time consuming processes.
Backupify provides organizations using Google Apps Education Edition with backup solutions that support multiple constituencies, including administrators, researchers, teachers and students. The company is also helping educational organizations satisfy federal data retention and backup requirements, such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, with archiving solutions for teacher communications and other confidential interactions.
Backupify supplies educational institutions with a user-friendly administration panel that supports multiple users at one time, allows easy access for both administrators and end-users to restore documents, gives them the ability to set unique archiving retention policies for different individual users or groups, includes a search function that provides a view into the entire domain to find specific communications or documents, and allows administrators to download a user’s account and archive it offline whenever they leave the organization.
“A priority for Berklee was not only replicating our existing services, but also exceeding the current quality when moving to the cloud,” said Andrew Crawford, Associate Director for Systems Administration at Berklee School of Music. “Backup was an important piece of that service standard, and helped us meet our quality objectives.”
“We chose Backupify because of their flexibility and ability to meet the needs of one of our largest customers, a K-12 school,” said Nick Smarrelli, COO of GadellNet, a St. Louis-based Google Apps and Backupify reseller focused on education. “We were able to choose a subset of the school’s users to backup, and turn off certain features. Also Backupify’s search and export functionality has allowed them to respond to legal e-discovery requests quickly and easily, and meet federal archiving regulation requirements.”
About Backupify
Backupify is the leading backup provider for cloud application data, offering an all-in-one archiving, search and restore solution for the most popular online services including Google Apps, Salesforce, Facebook, Twitter and more. Backupify ensures that companies can access and control the data they entrust to these systems and prevents data loss from external threats, user error or service failure. Backupify was founded in 2008 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For more information, please visit www.backupify.com or follow @Backupify on Twitter.
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May 17th, 2012
When you use Google services, you trust Google with your most sensitive information: Emails, contacts, calendars–the works. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, quite a bit. Google is not infallible, and even if it were, users can make mistakes. Spanning Backup ($3 per month for regular Google accounts users) is a cloud backup service that keeps a copy of all of your Google data and lets you restore it selectively should important data ever go missing.
Spanning Backup offers a beautiful dashboard showing at a glance how your backups are doing.Spanning Backup is also available for Google Apps users, at a cost of $2.50 per user per month. I tested the service with my paid Google Apps account, and integration couldn’t be easier: I simply granted Spanning Backup access to my domain, and that was it. I didn’t even have to type in my Google Apps password, or any other password for that matter.
The information Spanning Backup saves is extensive: Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts, right down to contact images. All information is saved over the cloud, onto Spanning Backup’s own servers. You don’t get to download any of it to your own computer, and you can only restore it to the account from which it was backed up.
Speaking of restoration, the data restoration interface leaves a lot to be desired. To test Spanning Backup, I deleted a Google contact. When I tried to restore it, Spanning Backup presented me with a list of backup timestamps showing the dates of recent successful backups. Not ideal, but not too confusing: I clicked the latest successful backup, taken before I deleted the contact. I expected Spanning to show me contacts deleted or modified since that backup was made. Instead, it let me pick a contact group to restore–and it wasn’t the group the contact I deleted was in. After hunting around the snapshot list for a snapshot that contained the group I needed, I ended up clicking the earliest snapshot thinking that snapshot surely has the contact I need.
Spanning Backup then proceeded to restore all of my contacts, even those that were not deleted, creating over 360 duplicate contacts. I realized this had happened when all my contacts started showing up twice on my Android phone, though at first I thought something must be wrong with the phone. It turns out this is not a bug, but a feature: Spanning Backup calls this “non-destructive restore,” and it means Spanning Backup never deletes your existing contacts when it restores an old backup, even if duplicates are created. All contacts restored are put into a group showing they were restored, so you can extract the contacts you need, and then delete all other contacts in the group. This makes sense, but it also requires good familiarity with Gmail’s groups interface and can be confusing otherwise.
Spanning Backup’s calendar restoration interface focuses on snapshots, and leaves much to be desired.The same thing happened when I tried to restore a calendar event: Spanning created a new calendar with the event I restored. While I understand why this is necessary, it was confusing at the time. If Spanning Backup sent an automated email explaining what’s going on when you restore something, that could help alleviate the confusion.
Contrary to my experience with Contacts and Calendar, Spanning Backup’s Gmail interface was brilliant. The interface shows a mirror image of the regular Gmail interface, with the same label tree and conversation headers. To test it, I deleted a conversation in Gmail (sent it to the Bin), and then deleted it from the Bin. Normally, once you do this, the conversation really is gone for good. I then located the conversation on Spanning (without having to deal with snapshots), and clicked Restore. Within moments, the conversation previously “deleted forever” was back in my inbox, with a label showing it was restored by Spanning Backup. That was a satisfying moment indeed.
Spanning Backup gets a lot of things right: The price, the easy setup, and the brilliant Gmail interface. If that same visual simplicity makes it to the Calendar, Contacts, and Docs restoring interfaces, Spanning Backup would be a truly exceptional service.
Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can use this Web-based software.
–Erez Zukerman
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May 15th, 2012
EzCheckPrinting check writer adds new data-backup feature to secure data on an external drive, CD/DVD disc, or remote server. Learn more at http://www.halfpricesoft.com
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) May 14, 2012
Check writer software, ezCheckPrinting from halfpricesoft.com, was updated with new data backup and restore features, which will prevent data loss to viruses, spyware and computer crashes. EzCheckPrinting developers believe small to mid-sized businesses in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, or anywhere else in California will find the benefits of this new version.
“Nobody can afford to lose payroll and check data. Yet, too many of our customers were telling us they’d been victim to a virus or computer crash that wiped out their database,” said Halfpricesoft.com founder Dr. Ge. “We wanted to provide our customers with peace of mind and a way to protect their check data safely, securely and quickly.”
Users can put the back-up file on a USB flash drive, external drive, optical media disc (CD or DVD), or on a remote server, including web-based data-storage services. In the event of a virus invasion or hard-drive crash, users can reinstall ezCheckPrinting software once the computer is restored, or on a different computer, and import the back-up database file in just a few minutes.
Known for affordability and ease-of-use, ezCheckPrinting check writer software is highly popular with small to mid-sized corporations, government agencies, non-profits and financial institutions. With ezCheckPrinting, writing a check is really easy! All user have to do is to enter the date, payee’s name and amount payable to the payee. This check writer will automatically convert numbers to words. User can write and print a check with just a few clicks.
Now the new version of EzCheckPrinting, which is available for free download at http://www.halfpricesoft.com/check_printing_software_download.asp, with no cost and no obligation. Other features include:
-Unlimited accounts and unlimited checks.
-Never reorder checks from the bank – which often results in costly delays and fees.
Priced at $39 (FREE through online special offers), ezCheckPrinting is affordable for any business. During tough economic times, Halfpricesoft.com gives buyers a new way to get ezCheckPrinting for free by partnering with TrialPay.
Never reorder checks from the bank – which often results in costly delays and fees. Now users can start the free test-drive at http://www.halfpricesoft.com/product_ezCheck.asp
About halfpricesoft.com
Halfpricesoft.com is a leading provider of small business software, including payroll software, employee attendance tracking software, check printing software, W2 software, 1099 software, and barcode generating software. Today Software from halfpricesoft.com is trusted by thousands of users and help small business owners simplify their payroll processing and business management.
Casey Yang
halfpricesoft.com
(502) 468-3547
Email Information
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May 15th, 2012
by Margaret Dawson No one would question the importance of network security. It has long been an IT focus and discipline about which we can become an expert and specialize in specific areas or technologies and for which we can earn certifications. But somehow, this strong focus on overall security has not translated to one of the most important aspects of keeping your business safe – data backup …
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May 13th, 2012
Ever wonder what the PCs in your small business are doing at night when no one is around? If you have new Intel Core® Processors™ featuring Intel Small Business Advantage, your PCs are busy backing up data, conducting routine maintenance and keeping an eye on your security software to make sure everything runs smoothly when your employees arrive for work in the morning. This video is one of three – be sure to check out the other two!
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May 13th, 2012
Data backup and security specialist Symantec has updated its NetBackup 5220 and Backup Exec 3600 backup appliances to include the latest NetBackup 7.5 and Backup Exec 2012 software, which the company announced earlier this year.
Symantec and Intel have worked together to develop the architecture for integrated backup appliance solutions based on Intel Server System SR2625UR and Symantec software.
Key features of the NetBackup 5220 appliance include NetBackup Accelerator, which helps shrink big backups into smaller backup windows by delivering full backups at the speed of incremental backups, a replication director to protect large volumes of data and virtual machines, and the companys V-Ray technology, which protects up to 3,000 VMware virtual machines with one appliance.
Other features include WAN optimization to improve backup speeds on high-latency networks, appliance and data protection from malicious attacks with Symantec Critical System Protection, and the capability to conduct disaster recovery over the network through auto image-replication technology.
We chose Symantec backup appliances, specifically the NetBackup 5200 series, because they allow us to quickly modernize our data protection environment. Appliances help reduce operating expenses around backup and lower risk, Jesse Determann, director of distributed architecture at Continuum Health Partners said in a statement. We found that it immediately reduced our backup window and the simplicity of the new user interface has streamlined the process for setting up new backup jobs for our virtual systems.
Optimized for small and midsize business (SMB) customers, the Backup Exec 3600 appliance is designed for companies with limited IT departments. The appliance offers integrated bare-metal recovery that includes backup-to-virtual (B2V) and physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversion technologies to allow recovery of a failed system to a VMware or Hyper-V guest.
Symantec also added Tape-Out support for additional longer-term or off-site data protection and integrated data de-duplication and archiving technology.
The Backup Exec 3600 offers Microsoft certified backup and recovery for the latest Windows environments, including Windows 2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1, Windows 7 and VMware Hyper-V, and replicates backup data to another Backup Exec 3600 appliance or managed Backup Exec Media Server in any location when using the Enterprise Server Central Admin Server option.
The appliance is also available with an optional cloud-based disaster recovery feature powered by Doyenz for planned and unplanned system recovery of VMware environments. It comes prepackaged with Backup Exec 2010 and 5.5 terabytes of useable disk storage.
Additionally, Symantec is addressing reliability concerns with redundant array of independent disks (RAID) 5 data drives, mirrored solid-state drives (SSDs) for a hardened operating system, redundant power supplies and battery backup on the RAID controller.
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May 13th, 2012
The data backup experts at Dakota Backup will attend the invitation-only 2012 Asigra Cloud Backup Partner Summit from June 11-13 in Toronto. The Rapid City, S.D.-based company was recently recognized in the April 2012 Information Week article “Cloud Storage, Backup and Synchronization” for their locally-generated and stored keys approach to encryption key management.
Rapid City, S.D. (PRWEB) May 09, 2012
The online data and recovery specialists at Dakota Backup in Rapid City have announced that they plan to attend the 2012 Asigra Cloud Backup Partner Summit, which takes place June 11-13 at the Sheraton Centre in downtown Toronto.
The backup professionals – who were recently recognized in the April 2012 Information Week article “Cloud Storage, Backup and Synchronization” for their locally-generated and stored keys approach to encryption key management – will learn about new Asigra products and experience hands-on training at the Summit.
The annual invitation-only Summit attracts the world’s largest gathering of leading cloud backup service providers and experts.
“This conference provides a wonderful opportunity to engage in business and technical sessions, experience hands-on lab training, and collaborate with peers who use cloud backup services,” said Dakota Backup online data and recovery specialist Patrick Mayock.
At the 2012 Asigra Partner Summit, participants can choose from role-based tracks where they will learn how-to’s, best practices, and inside tips from panels and peer-focused case studies. Breakout sessions will be geared toward finding the right training and learning experiences for each business’ own technical challenges.
Rodd Ahrenstorff, project manager for Dakota Backup, will be a speaker for the session titled “Becoming a HIPAA Compliant Cloud Backup Service Provider.” In his previous employment, Ahrenstorff held the positions of Director of IT and HIPAA Security Officer.
“Asigra also holds a hands-on training lab at the Summit. It’s fun because that’s where we are able to immerse ourselves in the new Asigra products with the technical leadership team. We’ll be able to have one-on-one conversations about these products and their functionality. This is a chance to really learn the new products inside and out,” explained Mayock.
Opportunities for intensive Asigra training in addition to the hands-on labs will also be available. Complimentary training for attendees is available before the Summit from June 10-11. From June 14-16, paid training sessions are scheduled.
“The Cloud Backup Partner Summit is such an invaluable opportunity to network with partners from all over the world,” said Mayock. “We always return to Rapid City energized by the investment Asigra is making in developing and designing tools to help our partners achieve success.”
Find out more about the cloud service providers at Dakota Backup on their website or call an account manager at 866-589-8271.
Rodd Ahrenstorff
Dakota Backup
866-589-8271
Email Information
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May 10th, 2012
NATICK, Mass., May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – TwinStrata, Inc., the leading innovator of cloud-based data storage, backup and disaster recovery solutions, today announced immediate support for HP Cloud Services (http://hpcloud.com) through its TwinStrata CloudArray® storage gateway. In addition, TwinStrata is extending a limited time introductory offer that enables HP Cloud Services customers to store up to one terabyte (1TB) in the cloud through a free CloudArray cloud storage gateway at www.twinstrata.com/cloudarray-for-HP.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111115/NE06670LOGO )
As part of its agreement with HP, TwinStrata provides customers of the newly launched public beta service an easy and flexible way to augment their existing storage infrastructure with pay-as-you-go cloud storage.
“Organizations who seek to migrate elements of their infrastructure to the cloud often find backup, archival and disaster recovery to be ideal applications,” said Nicos Vekiarides, chief executive officer at TwinStrata. “TwinStrata CloudArray enables customers to leverage HP’s public cloud infrastructure by delivering the features, performance and security of enterprise-class storage solutions without the capital expenses or administrative burden.”
Features such as dynamic caching, data replication, cloud snapshots, bandwidth throttling and scheduling, in-flight and at rest encryption, compression and deduplication, volume expansion and seamless integration with existing applications make TwinStrata CloudArray easy for businesses to deploy and adopt. Combined with HP Cloud Services, the solution gives customers immediate access to enterprise-class cloud storage, enabling them to accommodate data growth on-demand or meet archiving, data protection and disaster recovery needs, while paying only for the storage they actually consume.
Special Offer
For a limited time, TwinStrata is offering HP customers a free CloudArray cloud storage gateway for storing up to 1TB in the cloud. HP Cloud Services customers can download the free CloudArray virtual appliance at www.twinstrata.com/cloudarray-for-HP. Within minutes, they can start integrating HP Cloud Object Storage directly into their on-premise environments with the look and feel of local iSCSI data storage.
Follow TwinStrata:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TwinStrata
About TwinStrata CloudArray
CloudArray seamlessly and securely provides compelling multi-site data storage consolidation and disaster recovery solutions without the capital and administrative expense of traditional storage solutions. In addition to offering seamless off-site storage solutions across numerous applications including the most popular backup and archiving solutions, CloudArray also provides compression and deduplication technology that reduces stored data volume, minimizing remote storage and bandwidth requirements.
CloudArray is available as a virtual or physical appliance from TwinStrata. The virtual appliance software is available for immediate free download at www.twinstrata.com/cloudarray-for-HP.
About TwinStrata, Inc.
TwinStrata is an innovator in enterprise-class data storage, data protection and disaster recovery/business continuity solutions using cloud storage. With TwinStrata CloudArray®, companies of all sizes can simply and economically leverage the scalability and efficiency of cloud storage while maintaining the availability, performance and security of local storage. CloudArray software and hardware solutions support all file and operating systems, and deliver substantial advantages over traditional off-site storage solutions, including a pay-as-you-go model, unlimited elastic capacity, local performance, in-cloud snapshots and disaster recovery, dynamic caching, automated policies, AES256 encryption, and continuous access to data. For more information visit TwinStrata.com or call 508-651-0199.
CONTACT: Mark Smith, +1-818-884-8282, marks@jprcom.com
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