Online remote backup has risen in popularity the last few years. For a reasonable fee all types of businesses are entrusting their data to travel across the Internet and storage of that data in a remote location. Online remote backup services are popping up all over the technology landscape and for three solid reasons.

Online remote backup has advantages over traditional backup solutions, its security features are often better than most in house data security and it can mitigate risks and threats to your critical data.

Online Remote Backup Advantages

 Backup and recovery plans can be expensive to invest in. There is the cost of hardware, the cost of the software, and the cost of hiring trained employees to handle the process. In addition there is the time, which equals cost, of performing the backup process. Depending on the amount of data your company warrants as critical to backup and the amount of data you generate on a daily basis the time for backup can be extensive. Online remote backup can reduce this cost dramatically.

Through its automated process, its need for little or no additional investments, and the quick and easy availability for data recovery, you should see immediate results in your bottom line.

Online Remote Backup Security

 In house backup plans can sometimes overlook the obvious need for security. Many do not see the need to secure the backup data when the data is kept inside their own walls. There are statistics that speak to the need to do so. Employees often perpetrate damage, destruction, and loss. Curiosity or revenge can push people to enter an arena they normally would not go into. Data can draw this type of response. Protecting and securing your data has a lot to do with protecting your employees.

When one employee has committed a crime, everyone is subject to questioning. It does not make sense to leave the door open and online remote backup can close that door.

Online remote backup sends your data encrypted with a key only you hold. The backup process cannot be initiated except through authentication. You will know who requested the backup because you have identified and authorized certain people to do so and a log will tell you who performed the backup. In addition, once the data has arrived to the remote location, You should have the added security any online remote backup service would provide along with trained staff and a 24/7 customer service policy. Can you say the same for the backup data located in your office?

Online Remote Backup Mitigates Risk

 Online remote backup data is sitting on a server in a far away place. Your connection is the Internet and only through authentication and authority can someone download or retrieve the data. The data is not open to your network, therefore technical disasters cannot affect the data. It stays clean and trouble free until you solve your technical issues, human disasters, or natural disaster. When you see the need to recover safely your data is waiting for you, unharmed and clean from the risks and threats at hand.

True Disaster Recovery from The Kotter Group

 It seems clear that remote backup has many advantages over local backup.  It is safer, more secure and more reliable, but what do you do when disaster strikes?  Computers crash, disgruntled employees seek revenge, and Mother Nature can cause devastating destruction.  What happens when your computers crash in the middle of your busiest season?  Do you have time to rebuild your computer network, restore your data and start going?  Can you afford to be down for several days while you rebuild your computer network?  In the past, short of spending tens of thousands of dollars on disaster recovery sites, you had no choice.  Now you do.

The Kotter Group is the only company offering remote backup and True Disaster Recovery.  Unlike other companies that just backup your data, The Kotter Group also is an application service provider (ASP).  An application service provider (ASP) delivers and manages applications and computer services from remote data centers to multiple users via the Internet. We monitor, maintain and upgrade your applications while you focus on your core business.  

So what does this all mean?  In short, a clients building can burn to the ground and they can be back up and running in a matter of hours.  How?  Easy, The Kotter Group already hosts software for thousands of other people.  Instead of restoring the client’s data to their local (now destroyed) servers, The Kotter Group restores the data to their network.  The client can log into the Kotter Group network from any Internet connected computer on earth and see their applications, running their data.  It looks just like their local desktop.  Everything works the same.  This gives the client the flexibility to keep working while their network is getting repaired or the office is being rebuilt.

The best part is this is a free service for anyone who uses Guardian Angel from The Kotter Group.  For just $30/month you have get complete backup and disaster recovery.  Total peace of mind, only from The Kotter Group.

 

A lot has been said lately about data security.  The consequences of not properly protecting your clients’ private information are difficult at best, and at worst could be catastrophic to your organization.  Here's just one example, in one state. On September 22, 2009, an insurance agency in Oregon was fined $11,000 by the State of Oregon Insurance Division for not properly disposing of private client data.  Another true example: A good friend of mine just called me.  He had purchased a laptop off eBay. When he turned it on, he discovered that the laptop contained a complete copy of one agency’s entire client database.  In plain view were thousands of individual names, addresses, social security numbers, auto information, etc.  Imagine what would have happened to that agency if my friend was less than honorable and decided to open a few new credit card accounts or if he simply mass e-mailed all the clients with a note saying, "Guess what I have."  This sounds like a formula for "How to lose an entire book of business in just 10 days."

Producers like to have the portability of keeping user data on a laptop, but is it worth the risks?  For that matter, what are you doing to protect the data that is stored on your local server?  In these economic times, especially during the holidays, your server is worth a quick $40 at the pawn shop.  From there, who knows who will get it?

Entire books have been written on how to protect your data and comply with the myriad regulations out there right now.  Why deal with all those headaches when you can host your data in a secure, monitored data center?  Not only do you get the protection you need, but you get the added bonus of the flexibility of working from anywhere, any time.  Now, adding a new employee or opening a new office is a ten minute procedure, not a multi-day marathon with your IT guys.

Security, reliability, and flexibility, all for about $1 a day.  What's not to love about this plan?