Cloud IT Online Backup For Business

Backups in the cloud are becoming popular for personal files. Some of this is for protection against losing important photos and other files in case of accidental erasure or hard drive failure. Even more attractive is the ideal of keeping everything in the cloud so it can be accessed anywhere from any device. How about for business? Are cloud IT online backup services worthwhile for business users?

Independent professionals, such as consultants and sales people, may easily get by with something like Apple’s iCloud or other backup and storage services targeted to consumers. Businesses with multiple employees and perhaps multiple locations may do better with cloud services designed specifically for businesses. This is especially true if they are part of a managed solution that includes other IT services.

There are two approaches to cloud based file backup. One is to use the cloud as a separate repository for maintaining copies of important business files. The other is to take advantage of the inherent self-healing properties of the cloud itself.

“Cloud” is a moniker that is slapped onto just about any remote data center facility. The cloud is somewhere, out there. It may be as simple as a rack full of disk drives that you write to remotely. The real cloud model, though, is based on virtualization. A virtualized environment separates functionality from specific hardware. All the hardware is pooled and allotted on an as-needed basis. Cloud providers ensure that there is sufficient real hardware to not only meet any anticipated needs, but also to handle any equipment failures. If something should go awry, it is the cloud system’s job to make equipment reassignments invisible to the user.

This argues for running everything in the cloud. If your servers, storage and applications are all run out of the cloud, you don’t have to worry about how you are going to run backups. That’s all taken care of automatically. You also have access to the cloud anywhere you have connectivity. With a virtualized desktop you can even use various devices, such as laptops, tablets and smartphones, from office or field locations to get files and run applications.

A good example of such cloud solutions is the service provided by NewCloud Networks. One of the options you can specify is to have every file you upload to your cloud server mirrored 1:1 elsewhere in the cloud. If the hardware fails, your data is still available right there in the cloud. No need to upload everything again. You can also specify snapshot backups of your entire server and automatic hourly, daily, weekly or monthly backups.

Their virtual servers have self-healing architectures. If any node fails, cloud servers running resources on that node will be re-provisioned to alternative hardware automatically. Failover can be engineered to be instantaneous for applications with critical requirements.

The virtualized environment is all contained within a SAS-70 Data center with 100 Gbps on connectivity provided by four separate fiber strands from two different providers. Two power feeds come in from two separate entrances. There are multiple air conditioning units, redundant power supplies on each physical server, redundant routing and switching and backup power from UPS battery backup and redundant diesel generators.

The alternative approach is to keep all of your IT assets local and use the cloud for backups and disaster recovery. This has the advantage of causing the least upset in your current way of doing business while offering the protection of offsite backup to prevent data loss from local fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and the like.

Perhaps the biggest limitation to simple remote backup and recovery is the capacity of the link to your service provider. This is no problem for individual file access but can be a bottleneck for recovery operations. Electronic data today piles up in Gigabytes and Terabytes. Larger organizations can be generating this much data per employee. It may all be safely stored as created and modified, but how long will it take to get back. If all you have for connectivity is a T1 line, it’s going to be a long, long time. Even with faster Ethernet over Copper or fiber optic services, you could be in for a long download process to restore everything after a major disaster. For servers in the cloud, backup data is right next door and can be accessed immediately.

What works best for your business? File backup to the cloud or computing and storage within the cloud? Compare cloud IT online backup services for business to find the optimum price/performance solution for your company.

A New Cloud In IT Managed Services

Lots of companies are thinking seriously about moving their IT services to managed solutions in the cloud. The next issue is which cloud. How about the new cloud?

NewCloud Networks is a managed service provider that’s been around since 1988. They handle everything from small business voice and data needs right on up to national and international networking.

NewCloud believes in tailored solutions, not fitting your requirements into one of a few options. They’ll customize a server, virtual desktop, hosted VoIP, business email or other solution to match your current and projected needs. They’ll even become your IT department if you need one. Who needs an IT department in the cloud? Companies that are just growing out of the do-it-yourself startup phase or those who have been contracting this work out and frustrated with the quality of technicians they’re dealing with.

The cloud is all about virtualization. Instead of owning or renting specific hardware resources, you pay by usage for virtualized servers, storage and bandwidth to support your businesses processes. There’s a liberating aspect to this approach. You are no longer stuck with too small a solution as your company grows. You are also no longer forced to overprovision to make sure that you have have the capability of supporting seasonal needs and sudden spikes in traffic. When, and only when, you need more resources you add them quickly.

Are you currently hosting your own database, email or CRM server on-site? Is your data center easy to scale and have you taken the proper safety precautions to ensure that your system is protected no matter what? If you are wincing, even a little bit, the cloud may be where you really belong.

NewCloud Networks hardware is carefully contained in their SAS 70 Type II compliant data center with constant monitoring to ensure that your server is running continuously. Each virtual server can be independently rebooted in minutes. Quickly configure and deploy new servers. One physical server may be running several processes or you can run virtual servers across multiple physical boxes.

NewCloud offers Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) service running AppAssure software powered by Dell. This offers automatic verification that your backup is recoverable and that the application data is recoverable with a 5 minute recovery point and near-zero recover time objective. You’ll have both application item and file level recovery. All of this is protected with full redundancy, including data center connection to two separate power grids and two separate Internet feeds.

How about your desktop PCs? Are you always buying new machines and adding resources the ones you have just to keep up? If so, desktop virtualization offers some real advantages. Your actual PC becomes a virtual machine in the cloud where it is easy to turn up more CPU and RAM whenever you need it. You can access this desktop from wherever you happen to be using whatever you have connected to the Internet. All the heavy duty processing is done in the virtual machine.

You may already be sold on moving your IT applications and data to the cloud, but how about your business phone system? That’s right. Your PBX telephone switching can also be virtualized with the same advantages as virtual servers for cloud computing. You’ll enjoy the latest in enterprise communication features without the headaches of having to buy and deploy such a system yourself. You can even include your cell phones in this system. Mobile phones don’t play well with many in-house PBX systems. They fit right into the cloud for seamless communications capability.

Is now the right time to consider a move to the cloud? If you are even curious as to how your particular company can benefit, get expert consultation on the cloud resources available right now from NewCloud Networks and other cloud networking companies.