capital expenditure

Many organisations continue to use tape backup as a method of protecting their critical business data. But how does this compare to online backup? We have listed some handy comparisons for you below:

Automation
Whilst the software used by tape backup is automatic, the physical loading/unloading of tapes is not. Over the course of a year, this can take up considerable (and expensive) man-hours. By comparison, online backup is completely automatic – the entire process is managed by the client software and storage platform.

Security
Data is typically stored on tape in an unencrypted format. If these tapes are ever moved offsite (which they should be for offsite protection) there will be a security risk. BackupVault Online Backup is encrypted using a key known only to you even before it leaves your computer/server. It is fully encrypted whilst being transmitted over the Internet and remains encrypted on our servers.

Offsite Backups
Tape backups require them to be physically moved to an offsite location – preferably every day. This obviously takes time and the location is rarely secure. Online Backup is by its very nature “offsite” and therefore you data is protected from any number of physical threats.

(more…)