IBM recently announced that it is building a new data center near Beijing China.  The new data center is set to be among the ten largest in the world.  This announcement brings to mind an important subject for consideration.  Where is your data warehoused, and why is location even important?

I will address the latter of these two questions first.  With the near ubiquity of bandwidth and storage, having your data cross a border, state or otherwise, at some point is all but guaranteed.  Though not often considered, not all governments view personal privacy the same.  As recently as August of 2008, the Chinese government has been known to lock down data centers to search through archives.  Do you know where your provider’s data center is?

Perhaps you are backing up family photos or patient health records.  Either way, if you are reading this blog, you care enough about your data to protect it.  You also want to know that you are the only with access to your data.  KeepVault begins the process by encrypting your data –at the source– using up to 256 bit AES encryption.  Then communication with our servers is accomplished using an encrypted Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection.  This connection prevents would-be eavesdropping while data traverses the Internet.

The final piece of the equation is the data center.  All the encryption on earth provides only limited protection if third parties can gain physical access to your data.  KeepVault only houses data in places that have laws to protect your personal and business data.  Our servers are currently located in California, Kansas, and Michigan, USA.  Moreover, as we expand our global network, we will only ever house data in states or countries with similar laws already in place.

The data center is an often overlooked aspect when considering an online backup provider.  Those of us who have created KeepVault consider it a sacred bond of trust with our customers.  Ensuring your data is safe and that only you have access to it motivates us throughout the day.  Rest assured that your data is secure when you use KeepVault backup.

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.

Last week I was attending a meeting with an important OEM client, only to find that I’d forgotten to move a PowerPoint file (that was a major part of the presentation) from my desktop PC to my presentation/travel laptop.  That’s unlike me; usually I’ve triple checked before getting on the plane.  Perhaps this time I was distracted by the heavy snow, the thought of missing sledding with my 4 year old, or the 1am and 4am wake up calls from our 6 month old! Either way, the file wasn’t there.

I was just about to panic when I remembered KeepVault! Specifically I remembered that my KeepVault Pro account backs up files in real-time (so the moment I created, edited, and saved the presentation it was backed-up) AND that I could access all of the protected files from any of my PCs via the web at http://web.keepvault.com.   A few minutes later the file was safely back on my laptop and the pitch was a success (as far as it could be considering those early morning baby cries!).

In all honesty, it’s the first time I’ve had to use KeepVault in a pinch, but I’m really glad it was there!