Protecting the data in your office is crucial for the survival of your business.  A single unforeseen event (fire, theft, flood, equipment failure, accidental deletion, virus etc) could wipe-out critical data and cause a significant loss in revenue or outright failure of your company.

Windows Home Server/Local Backup

A good first step is to create a local backup of your data; this is your initial line of defense against data loss. The Windows Home Server and Windows Small Business Server platforms are an excellent way to protect your data; Windows Home Server (WHS) units can be purchased for under $500 and setup quickly and easily.  Either use the Microsoft PC/Laptop tool to backup device to the WHS, or our KeepVault Connector archiving tool, or simply use the WHS as a central file share.  Once setup, KeepVault is the best way to then backup your Windows Home Server to the Internet.

4 Step Program

1. Purchase one 40GB KeepVaultPro account for only $15/month (we have a free trial too). You can easily buy more storage later as your needs grow.
2. Install the software on all the computers/servers to protect, entering your account credentials.  There are no additional fees for each computer!
3. The setup wizard helps you identify the locations you want to protect.  By default we recommend protecting all the data in the 'User' folder; this includes things like their 'Desktop' and 'Documents/My Documents' folders.
4. Choose the real-time / always-on protection option (as a file is changed or created in the monitored folders it will be backed-up in real time), close the wizard and you're all set!

Optional Steps

1. KeepVault will also simultaneously backup data to an attached USB drive. You can very cheaply outfit your staff with USB keys; this can be their first line of defense against data loss.  You can choose whether KeepVault encrypts the data stored on the USB. Restoring files from a local drive is typically faster.
2. Worried about employees changing or stopping the backup? With KeepVault Pro you can set an administrator password (learn more in the user manual) which locks the KeepVault user interface to prevent changes.
3. Looking to limit access to backed-up data? KeepVault Pro has a 'sub-user' feature.  Use this to segment your storage; perhaps 20GB for 'managers', 50GB for 'art department', 20GB for 'marketing'. Each of those 'sub accounts' will have different credentials, prohibiting access to the other sub accounts. It's also a great way to track usage by department.

Many of you have probably read of Mozy's recent decision to cancel their unlimited online backup service for consumers. If not here are a few interesting takes on their decision:

• David Neal at The Inquirer
• Keir Thomas at PC World
• Stephen Shankland at CNET
• Barry Collins at PCPro

Obviously this must have been a very hard decision for Mozy to make. They were the pioneers in the space; providing drop-dead simple backup for consumers by removing the worry of ever running out of space.  For them to pull the plug on the very foundation of the service points to the seriousness and very real nature of the problem they are dealing with; an explosion in data storage.  As one of our prior blog articles mentioned we are fully aware of this too; KeepVault has seen triple digit growth in the last 12 months.  Not only are more people backing up, but more people are backing up a lot more data.

Not Sustainable

Unlimited plans rely on the average consumption of all users being profitable, eg the few users who gobble up lots of storage space will be balanced by users with very little data.  They also factor continuing drops in storage price through economies of scale and a flow of new customers. Many also throttle/restrict upload and download speeds to reduce costs still further.  Profits rely on making pennies per customer, but having millions of customers. Even a small shift in customer behavior can quickly turn those profits into large and growing losses. That's what seems to have happened to Mozy's all-you-can-eat data-backup-buffet in the sky.

Back(up) to Reality

Many of Mozy's competitors in the unlimited backup space have been quick to jump on the news; advertising their own unlimited programs and hoping to lure existing Mozy customers.  Certainly we don't hold any judgement on them doing this; this is business after all and everyone has to make money.

However, if you're a consumer and you've just seen the largest unlimited backup provider, the pioneer in the space, leave the game shouldn't you be asking yourself "who's next to fold?". Surely if anyone could have made it work it would have been Mozy?  Answer these questions honestly:

• What am I willing to pay to protect irreplaceable memories and what level of service do I expect in return?
• Do I really want to re-upload everything to another unlimited provider only to risk them going-under or changing their pricing plans?
• What is the value of peace-of-mind and stability?
• How much risk am I willing to take?

Each to Their Own and Maturity

What were your answers? For many of you the pure simplicity of unlimited online backup will outweigh any of the associated risks and service issues. That's fine; it's a personal decision after all.  For others we hope you start to weigh your options; did you know that with a little planning you can protect the really important data for just a few $ per month?

We encourage you to read our data protection strategies guide and review our flexible pricing plans (for about $4/month you get 40GB to use across all your devices. Plans go up to 5TB for consumers. Pennies per GB/month!).  Download our free data risk analysis tool to see how much data you have to protect.

• Consider backing everything up to a local/network hard drive and just the most important files online; this can help to reduce costs and provides you with two levels of protection.

We welcome Mozy's decision. It shows courage and, we believe, helps move online backup into a more mature and trustworthy position. In the long run, consumers will be better served by profitable online backup providers, happy to protect your data as if it were their own.

Being a Mac user myself it’s been a personal goal to provide Mac support for our KeepVault customers.  While the code that underpins KeepVault (“the engine”) has always been cross-platform we haven’t until recently offered a Mac user interface. Last month we rolled out phase 1 of our Mac strategy; KeepVault Connector for the Mac.

KeepVault Connector is an addin for the Windows Home Server and Windows Server platforms.  It provides real-time file archiving from client PCs & Macs to a designated server via a LAN or WAN connection.  Once archived to the server, these files can then be protected to the online KeepVault storage.

Visit our forums for easy to follow setup instructions:
Mac - http://www.proxure.com/forums/viewtopic.php
PC - http://www.proxure.com/forums/viewtopic.php

The ability for consumers and businesses to easily and reliably capture information from laptops and desktops is huge.  IDC estimates that  “as much as 60% of corporate data resides unprotected on corporate laptops and desktops”.  Once KeepVault Connector is installed that problem is hugely reduced.

Look for more Mac announcements in the near future!