KineticD Offers Hybrid Cloud Backup For Servers

Online backup and disaster recovery service provider KineticD is now offering KineticCloud for Servers, which provides what the company calls "disk-to-disk-to-cloud" backup of data, meaning that the customer makes a backup disk that stays on premise while another backup is stored in KineticD’s cloud.

"The dirty little secret of online backup or cloud backup is restore," says Jamie Brenzel, CEO of KineticD. "The initial backup is the most intensive; specifically, for servers it could take weeks, if not longer. to back up that data over the Internet. If there is a catastrophe and the data needs to be restored, you're limited by the amount of bandwidth pipe, and it can take just as long to restore over the Internet as it does to back up."

KineticCloud for Servers is in beta release now and should be generally available sometime in mid-December. It addresses the problem by backing up to a local server within the network and then, without the use of an agent, deploying from that server to back up all other devices on the network, such as desktops, laptops or other servers, Brenzel explains. The service creates a local copy of the data that can be accessed quickly as needed, while also allowing selective syncing of data to the cloud.

KineticCloud for Servers features block-level deduplication to weed out duplicate copies of data when they are created, which also contributes to faster backups and reduced bandwidth consumption, he says. The service provides native support for Microsoft Small Business Server, Exchange, Outlook and SQL, as well as virtual environments including Microsoft Hyper-V and the widely used VMware platform.

KineticD will charge $19.95 a month for the service that includes local and cloud backup, regardless of the number of end points being backed up, a price Brenzel calls "disruptive." Those who choose the cloud-only backup pay $6.95 per month per server plus 50 cents per gigabyte for cloud backup capacity.

And because KineticD also provides encryption before the data leaves the customer’s machines, it gives small to midsize businesses (SMBs)--KineticD’s target market--peace of mind about going to the cloud.

"The whole notion of people being comfortable with data going to the cloud is really resonating with small businesses today because they really don’t have a solution. Either they are doing nothing at all or they are backing up to tape and that really isn’t working very well for them," Brenzel says.

KineticD for Servers addresses a common problem for business of having enough IT resources and making sure they are fully utilized, says Eric Klein, a senior analyst at VDC Research. A service like KineticD’s can reassure businesses that their backups are done right without gobbling up bandwidth and storage.

A 2010 survey of SMBs on their use of online backup, conducted for KineticD by Riverdale Partners, showed that prior to using an online backup service, only 8% of users backed up their data at least once a month, and 23% claimed they never did backups at all.

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