CrashPlan Backup Solution

If you are looking for an online backup solution that offers the option to avoid the cost of online storage space, make sure to take a look at CrashPlan. Using a client side application backups can be made to some location other than where the data lives in its production state. For instance, if you and a friend decided that you would permit each other to store backup data on disk(s) at each other’s houses, you would need an application like CrasPlan to facilitate this.

Clear as mud, I know, but let me explain…

CrashPlan uses a client piece of software that allows you to point to a backup location across the Internet (obviously it would work across and or within an intranet or LAN/WAN too) and will manage backups to those locations automatically. In effect what CrashPlan does is provide a very sophisticated method for performing Internet enabled site-to-site backups. If you are wondering where this might be useful think about all of those small organizations that currently employ the sneaker powered off-site data backup repositories. I have lots of small clients that use removable drives for their backups. Each week someone within the organization is tasked with carrying home one drive while bringing back an older drive to be used for the next round of backups. CrashPlan precludes someone from having to carry backup drives on and off site.

Furthermore if you have or are currently using an online backup solution like Mozy (see our Take A Look article on Mozy), you are aware that an initial backup over the Internet can take quite a long time. CrashPlan, in addition to allowing backups over the Internet, has a feature that lets you perform initial backups as well as restores from a CrashPlan drive locally. This can save a lot of time in the event you are backing up or restoring a lot of data at any given single instance.

CrashPlan also offers a very attractively priced on-line data vault of different sizes. In the event you don’t have a friend who will let you use some of their disk space for backups, you can always purchase space from CrashPlan. There are a number of different versions of the CrashPlan client side software that differ according to backup requirements and the level of sophistication and number of devices being backed up, think enterprise backups with the ability to backup servers and PCs from lots of locations. Lastly CrashPlan also offers backup appliances with CrashPlan server software.

While Mozy is a great product and quite simple to use compared to a solution like CrashPlan (we use Mozy too), CrashPlan is a very attractive option to Mozy in the event you need more options or have some reason for not storing your backups online in the “cloud!” OMBNexGen has a number of clients that use CrashPlan and consistent with our recommendation to make the Internet your computer, those clients are using CrashPlan’s online vaults for their backup storage. This allows restores to occur from anyplace and hence makes for a very useful disaster recovery solution.

For additional information and or complete details on how your organization can use solutions like CrashPlan or Mozy, contact us (415-233-6856 or click HERE) to find out how OMBNexGen can help you and your organization!

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