Backing up your data online is the easiest way to protect your company's irreplaceable assets. Unfortunately, some businesses don't realize the importance of backing up their data until it's too late. The statistics are quite alarming. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and the National Archives in Washington, 60% of companies that lose their data close down within 6 months and 93% close their doors within 5 years.

Fortunately, backing up your data doesn't have to be as complex as it once was. When you back up your data online, all you need is an Internet connection and backup software. Keeping track of full, differential, or incremental backups is no longer necessary. And, manually storing your backup media offsite to protect against fire, theft, and natural disasters, is no longer a concern.

According to recent surveys, more and more businesses are choosing an online backup solution for their data protection needs for a multitude of reasons! There are several advantages, including:

• Critical business data is automatically stored offsite.
• No need for additional hardware and storage media.
• There are no backup device or media failures to worry about.
• You don't need to maintain or rotate backups.
• All you need is an Internet connection and backup software.

With an online backup solution, you will be relieved from worrying about purchasing, installing, and maintaining any additional hardware. You won't need to worry about the shelf-life of your backup media. You may not even need someone from the IT department to help you get started. All you need to do is ensure that your computer or office network has an Internet connection. Then it's simply a matter of installing the online backup software. After this, you can start backing up your data immediately and confidently.

The inherent beauty of an online backup solution is that your data will be automatically protected from fire, theft, vandalism, flood, and other types of natural disasters. This is due to the fact that your data is already stored on a remote backup server. In the past, businesses hoping to protect their data from physical disasters may have used tape backup devices. They would store their tapes in safe-deposit boxes which are located offsite, typically, at a bank. This does keep data stored offsite but requires the inconvenience of transporting the tapes to that offsite location. In addition, these types of backups must be rotated to replace older backups with new ones. With an online backup service, however, your business will have the convenience of readily available backup data that is already safely stored offsite.

What should you look for in an Online Backup Service?
With all of the advantages that online backup provides, there are some things to keep in mind when choosing an online backup service:

• Data Security
• Reliability
• Ease-of-Use
• Acquiring a Free Trial

Data Security
Data security is the most important thing to look for in an online backup service. If your data is not secure, then there is really no point in having a backup in the first place. There are two main aspects of security that are important in the world of online backup.

The first is backup server security. Imagine the chaos and worry if a hacker broke into your backup server and deleted your backups. In order to prevent something awful like this from happening, look for an online backup service that provides secure TLS/SSL server connections. This keeps your password secure and also prevents a "man-in-the-middle" attack which allows a hacker to corrupt your data.

The second security issue to be aware of is backup file encryption. Some businesses have highly sensitive data which must be protected. For example, doctor's offices are required to maintain patient privacy; their main concerns are with HIPAA compliancy. Other businesses, such as software developers, want to protect their trade secrets; they don't want their source code falling into the wrong hands. AES file encryption provides protection against these risks, so be sure the online backup service offers this important feature. AES encryption is superior to other forms of encryption; it is the new standard adopted and deployed by the U.S. Government to protect classified information. It keeps confidential information, confidential.

Reliability
There are a number of things that can go wrong with backing up your data, especially when it takes place over an Internet connection. For example, an Internet connection could fail in the middle of a backup resulting in a faulty copy of the data stored on the backup server. To avoid this scenario, a good backup service will ensure that the data is verified not only before it is transmitted over the Internet but afterwards as well.

If data is not verified after it has been uploaded to the backup server, you may not know about a problem until you try to restore it. This would defeat the whole point of having a backup in the first place. Ensuring that the backup service provides full file verification will save you time, aggravation, and money in the long term.

In addition to full file verification methods, you want to ensure that your online backup service provides RAID redundancy. A RAID redundant backup server prevents data loss when a hard drive on a particular server fails. Look for a service that provides RAID-1, RAID-5, or RAID-6 redundant servers to help prevent this from happening and to protect your backups.

Ease-of-Use
Ease-of-use is a given when choosing an online backup service. After all, the backup software is your interface to protecting your valuable data and you need to be comfortable using it. If the service offers backup software with a "set-it-and-forget-it" interface, you will be able to run your backups automatically and never have to worry about them again. Typically, you want to be able to schedule your backups to run at night when nobody is in the office.

You don't want software that automatically chooses the files for your backup set. You also don't want software that places restrictions on the types of files that you are allowed to backup. Being able to select specific files and folders to backup is important for your business. Selecting these files and folders should not require anything more than clicking on a few checkboxes within the software.

Another important aspect concerning what makes an online backup service easy-to-use has to do with restoring your data in the event of data-loss. Connecting to your backup server and restoring your data should be fast and simple. The last thing anyone wants to deal with is spending time restoring data with a slow and unresponsive server.

Acquiring a Free Trial
No matter which online backup service you choose, you want to take it for a test drive before committing. Often, there is little in common between online backup services; you want to be confident in subscribing to the best online backup service for your particular business needs. When you find a service that meets your requirements, take full advantage of a free trial offer if there is one offered. Keep in mind it is all about ease-of-use and quality of service. An online backup service that provides a free trial indicates that they are confident in their services and that they are willing to prove it to you for free.

Biography:

Steve Eschweiler is the President and CEO of SecureBackup LLC. He provides free advice and practical tips about backing up data in his "Online Backup" blog at:
http://www.securebackup.com/online-backup.
To download a Free 14-Day Trial of SecureBackup PRO or to learn more about backing up your business data, please visit http://www.securebackup.com/pro.