Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Sifting Through Online Backup Service Options: Page 2 of 6

Also, the constraints found with online backup services play a role. Large and mid-sized companies have to back up multiple terabytes of information. While there has been progress improving Internet access and corporate network speeds, online services still have difficulty moving large amounts of information fast enough, so medium and large company backups usually can't be completed in a timely manner.

One plus of the consumer focus is that pricing is relatively low and the services are easy to use. For consumers or relatively small businesses with limited technical expertise, the services can represent a good buy. For the cost of a backup drive, customers can protect important data for about a year. Also, they do not have to worry about whether or not they know how to complete the backups properly themselves.

An online service was very handy for Prinova, which provides cleaning products to hotels and other organizations. The company decided in December 2007 to switch from a manual backup system to Intronis Technologies's eSure IT. "The backups were taking a long time, and we were concerned about the reliability of our backup data," said Prinova president Doug Merkel. During the July 4 weekend, thieves broke into the company's office and stole its computers as well as its office items. Because the information was backed up and stored online, the company was able to reopen for business in a couple of days.

Recently, larger enterprises have become more interested in online desktop backup services. "Many organizations are figuring out that an online backup service may make sense for a subset of their data protection strategy -- possibly remote and branch offices and remote and mobile workers," said Lauren Whitehouse, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) .

As employees have become more mobile, important data has moved from servers to desktops, laptops, and handheld devices. Trying to track such information has become a chore for many organizations, and the new services can help companies address that issue.