6 Good Reasons for Online Backup Services

Author: Thom Davidson

Seven (7) advantages of online backup services include:

1. Automatic. Once one establishes their schedule, it is fully automated. There are no tapes to manage, staff to schedule, or vendors to coordinate for pickup and delivery of tapes. Therefore, you save time, money and virtually eliminate errors.

2. Secure. Data is stored on disk and not tape. Tape has a history of failure and it typically occurs at the most inopportune moment. In addition, most tapes are not encrypted. One can only imagine the potential ramifications to your business if customer records were accessed by someone using one of your unencrypted tapes. The story is not much better if you are unable to recover critical data at vital point in time. Online backup services can offer end-to-end encryption AES algorithms that are used both in transit as well as storage. This further ensures the security of your sensitive data. With the online backup service your sensitive data is also automatically stored offsite in a secured data center.

3. Accessible and Managed from Anywhere. “A centralized system that allows you to manage your entire systems backup and recovery requirements regardless of where they or you are located is a huge advantage to companies. This is particularly true for companies with multiple locations.” Says Jim Kandrac of VAULT400. Popular platforms and applications being managed in this way by leading providers include DB2 – System I, AS/400, iSeries, AIX, HP UX, SUN, Exchange, SQL, Windows, VMware, Linux, etc. Netware and Mac.

4. Efficient Use of Internet: Some of the better online backup services back up only the data blocks in new or changed files, resulting in significantly faster backup times and minimal. Data is also compressed before transmission. In addition they might offer bandwidth throttling. This allows one to define how much of their Internet bandwidth they want to allow to be used for this process during various time windows of the day. For example, you might limit the process to a maximum of 10% of your bandwidth during normal office hours and open it up to 80% for the balance of the day.

5. No Capital Investment: If you are like most organizations, getting approval for a large capital expenditure is a daunting task. With the Software as a Service (SaaS) approach one is basically paying a monthly fee for the service. In addition the startup can be almost immediate. Typically, a small software agent is loaded on the systems you wish to backup to a data vault and then the scheduling/backup process can begin the same day.

6. Compliance Regulations: The recent increase in government and industry specific regulations (SAS 70, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, HIPAA, SOX and SEC|NASD) surrounding the privacy, accessibility, and retention of information are creating new challenges for backup and recovery processes. Vendors like VAULT400 are intimately familiar with these challenges. They give organizations confidence that their critical information is securely stored for as long as necessary, yet quickly accessible when needed. This immediately addresses inquiries by auditors and security/privacy concerns.

Summary: As you can see, there are some very compelling reasons for an online backup service. Remember, the goal of any online backup and recovery plan is to maintain the integrity of your systems and your business with little or no interruption in the process. When a disaster does occur, we want business to remain uninterrupted at best, or at worst get back on line in a short amount of time. With an online backup service you can quickly transfer your data to any targeted system from anywhere in the world and stay in business.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/computers-articles/6-good-reasons-for-online-backup-services-287768.html

Know More About Load Balancing

Author: Amy Nutt
Load balancing, by definition, is the process of spreading the amount of work that is conducted by a computer system between a number of different computer systems to increase the speed that the work is completed in. There are several different methods in which load balancing can be accomplished by and the technique can use many different types of computer components, including both hardware and software applications. Load balancing is typically completed using a cluster of computer servers that may or may not be located in the same location. Some load balancers provide a mechanism for doing something special in the event that all backend servers are unavailable. This might include forwarding to a backup load balancer, or displaying a message regarding the outage. Load balancing can be useful when dealing with redundant communications links.

There are many different companies that see the benefits of using load balancing and implement the procedure for their companies. Companies that conduct business transactions in large numbers using the internet are prime candidates to use load balancing to ensure that all of their clients and customers will be able to conduct their transactions in a quickly and accurately manner. Companies that need to network a great deal of computers for individual users also typically use load balancing to ensure that all computers will work properly and have the right amount of power to be able to perform the functions that they are intended to perform. It also ensures that the company will still be able to do business if one server becomes corrupted or goes down for an extended period of time.

There are several different methods that are widely used for load balancing. One of the most popular methods of load balancing is Global Server Load Balancing. This technique distributes the incoming tasks to a group of servers in a particular geographic location. This technique is widely used by companies that have a global presence and have a need to satisfy customers or employees in many different geographical locations. Using Global Server Load Balancing ensures that the work load is distributed throughout the entire server system in an easy to manage manner and ensures that all geographical locations are obtaining the correct information from the correct set of servers.

Another load balancing technique that is commonly used is called Persistence Load Balancing. This technique assigns each new client to a different server in a round robin (distributed page requests evenly to one of three Squid cache servers) type of allocation. This client is then assigned to this specific server for the future of their relationship with the business. This ensures that no one server is overloaded with a particular type of client, such as those in a certain geographical area or use a specific type of service and ensures that the clients are distributed evenly through out all of the servers that the business possesses. These server assignments are typically monitored by using the customers IP address as the customer's unique identification code.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/computers-articles/know-more-about-load-balancing-287509.html