StoragePipe Online Backup: Why are Flexible Backup Policies Important?

February 02, 2010

By Patrick Jobin of StoragePipe Solutions

Online backup is a great way to simplify your life by automating the - once long and boring - task of backing up your important files to off-site storage for safekeeping. For consumers, there are currently a lot of different online backup options available, and sometimes it can seem tricky to pick the right one.

Every solution is different… with different features, intended for different kinds of computer users.

Although the variety is far too wide to comprehensively cover in a single article, today I’d like to go over the topic of “backup policies”, and how these might affect your choice of online backup providers.

For individuals and small businesses, there are 2 main benefits that you should be looking to gain from selecting a cloud backup service:

Minimizing the amount of data lost in an emergency

The more recent a file is, the more important it will probably be for you. For this reason, daily backups aren’t always convenient. If you’d spent all day compiling an important spreadsheet for the boss, it would be a shame to lose all of that hard work because your computer crashed before the daily backup was scheduled to be performed.

That’s why so many online backup providers now offer the capability of continuously updating your backups, each time you hit the save button. Now, instead of a potential “24 hour window” for data loss, you can recover your work to the last time you saved your file… which may be as little as 2 minutes previous.

Minimizing the amount of time it takes to back up

Another great benefit of this continuous backup technology is that you no longer have to set aside an hour at the end of your day to perform your backups. Instead, your backups will spread themselves out throughout the day… as a series of smaller uploads.

Because these updates are so small, they won’t cause any noticeable burden on your Internet connection, and because you no longer have a backup window to worry about, you can use your computer whenever and wherever you want… and even take it offline at the end of the day if it pleases you. (This is especially convenient for laptop users)

However, this continuous data protection methodology - when used improperly - has been known to cause minor hiccups with certain files and applications.

For example, your database files and Outlook PST files are changing constantly throughout the day. It might not always be a good idea to back up these files continuously.  For these specific files, a daily backup would be more ideal.

For this reason, you’ll want to make sure that any “continuous” online backup service that you select also offers the capability of creating customized backup policies which allow you to set certain files for continuous data uploads, while others get set aside for daily backups.

This way, you get the best of both worlds.

You minimize the potential for data loss while spreading your backups throughout the day, and you still make efficient and appropriate use of your computer’s resources.

In fact, many online backup providers today will offer hybrid continuous/scheduled data backup services that allow you to pick from pre-designed backup policy templates that can be further modified to suit your needs. This means that new users can quickly get started with the appropriate backup policy, without having to dig around and change the settings. And as they become more experienced with the software, they can further-refine their personal backup policy to make it even more efficient.

Full-featured online backup solutions with continuous data backup and flexible backup policies can help you save time and automate a very important but often neglected part of your daily work life. If you browse the web, you’ll surely find the perfect solution that suits your needs.

About The Author: Storagepipe provides cloud-based online backup and server backup technology for businesses and consumers.