Even with the recession taking its toll on many sectors and businesses, an area of the IT space i.e. the data backup and recovery industry is still witnessing rapid growth. This is because of the burgeoning need for data backups that are being felt by almost all firms (big or small) that have significant IT operations. With the IDC predicting a 30 percent increase in data usage every year, it is the case that data that an organization has to store would double every three years. Coupled with the emerging trend towards using the cloud as a backup alternative, the prospects for Disaster Recovery (DR) industry in 2013 are looking good. To top up the good news, with many firms taking backups of backups just in case they need to recover from a VM (Virtual Machine), there is a whole lot of demand for DR firm.

The biggest business driver for the DR industry in 2013 would be the move from tape-based backups to disk based backups. Firms increasingly are beginning to realize that tape based backups pose a whole set of problems including the security aspect, as they have to be moved from onsite to the backup location. Further, the aspects of corrupted tapes, blank tapes, and missing files make the tape based backups unreliable. However, this is not to say that tape based backups would be sunset as many firms realize that over the longer term, having tapes is an advantage. With regulatory rulings demanding a decade of data to be backed up, tape based backups are going to be around for some more years.

The next big driver for the DR industry is the emerging trend of disk-based backup wherein the growth in this method would drive the disk sales as well as services of technical personnel who have expertise in this field. With the still nascent cloud as a backup option yet to take off in a big way especially for larger businesses, the transition from the earlier paradigm to the cloud-based paradigm would have a prominent role for the tape-based backups in 2013. The key aspect here is that the DR industry is an inflection point and the tape-based backups are the intermediate stage before the full-fledged transition to cloud takes place.

Of course, many believe that the transition to cloud might not take place after all as the time it takes to restore the backups from the cloud is still not commercially viable. Considering the fact that businesses lose over $ 70,000 per hour of outage, the lengthier times that are part of the cloud recovery rule out any immediate move to the cloud paradigm. An emerging trend that is of consequence here is the use of the cloud as a backup of the backup which would greatly benefit those firms that do not have huge offsite backup facilities. Maybe, this is one driver in the DR market for 2013 that is not getting the attention it deserves.

To wrap things up, 2013 looks to be a promising year for the DR industry and notwithstanding the concerns of a double dip looming ahead, one can safely that the exponential increase in data generation should take care of any lingering worries about the slowdown. It needs to be remembered that any business has to necessarily backup data in any economic condition and this alone should be enough to drive growth in the DR industry. A couple of months into the New Year, it is safe to say that things are indeed looking up.

The post Data Recovery and Backup Market in 2013 appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

Is JustCloud something for me?

Who is JustCloud for?

Sometimes online backup can be very difficult. Not so with JustCloud. It is very easy to sign up and register an account with JustCloud and then start your backup. There is no need to think about weird preferences, data security, reliability or even space, as it is all unlimited (with the exception of a file size limit of 3GB – now 5GB!). Everything is taken care of by JustCloud. And that is the beauty of it: if you are not the most tech-savvy person alive, then you’ll certainly love JustCloud. In fact, I even recommended JustCloud to my grandma. She stores all her photos and videos on her PC, but she has never even thought about creating a backup. Imagine, all those photos and videos could be lost forever. If you are looking for a hassle-free online backup solution then you may try JustCloud for free for 14 days. You can’t go terribly wrong with that service. However, we are going to discuss the pros and cons in this review.

How does JustCloud stack up?

JustCloud $4.95/month Unlimited Storage File Sharing File Sync No Bandwidth throttle Activate Offer

Mozy $5.24/month Unlimited Storage File Sharing File Sync No Bandwidth throttle Activate Offer

Carbonite $4.54/month Unlimited Storage File Sharing File Sync No Bandwidth throttle Activate Offer

As for the price, I’ve taken the 2-year plan of every provider to be sure to include the discounts you’ll get committing yourself for two years. You will have to pay the fee upfront – so take the monthly price times 24 and you’ll end up with the final price.

Also, you might notice that Carbonite, while offering unlimited backup, throttles bandwidth after a couple of gigabyte resulting in very slow online backups. This is something JustCloud doesn’t do. The only limitation you have with JustCloud is the file size limit of 3GB – now 5GB!. Mozy doesn’t offer an unlimited plan and is therefore quite a pricy option, as you’ll only get 50GB of storage. One of my folders with some photos alone would consume all that space.

JustCloud review

JustCloud is a relatively new online backup and synchronization service. Founded in 2010, the JustCloud team thought about how to revolutionize online backup and make it more accessible for everyone. They came up with the idea of unlimited online backup, as this is the easiest way to organize your files. Granted, the idea of unlimited online backup is not new: Carbonite and Backblaze also offer unlimited online backup. So there is some competition in the space and we are going to see whether JustCloud can live up to our expectations.

JustCloud Homepage

For me, it is very compelling to combine backup and synchronization in one solution. Yes, backups are necessary, but I also need my files across multiple devices: for my personal use I have an iMac and a MacBook Pro. At work, I tend to work with a Windows PC. So I have at least 3 devices that I need to sync data across. Fortunately, JustCloud comes with a 1-GB free syncing space. 1 GB is not much, but certainly enough for the occasional syncing of documents or PowerPoint presentations. If you need more space you can extend your syncing folder up to 20 GB, at an additional cost.

If there is something to criticize about JustCloud it would be that they want you to buy additional features that are not necessary, such as priority backup, which is supposed to increase your backup speed. However, backup speed relies heavily on your own Internet connection and this is the bottleneck for most of the users.

Features

Before we dive deeper into JustCloud I’d like to have a look at the features it offers. As it is not only a backup solution but also a syncing and file sharing suite there is a lot for us to look at:

• Unlimited online backup
• File sharing ability
• 1 GB of free syncing space
• Mobile access
• File versioning
• Encrypted and secure online backups
• 100% automated

You get all those features for only $4.95 per month if you are willing to commit yourself for a two-year period. In my own experience, once you’ve chosen an online backup service, you are going to stay with it for a longer period than a year anyway. That’s why it makes sense to make use of the discounts for annual or biannual plans. However, if you don’t good about that idea, you can test the service for free for 14 days. That’s a great way to see if JustCloud is something for you.

Ease of use

As I have already pointed out in my introduction to JustCloud – it is dead simple to use. Basically, there are only 3 steps necessary for your peace of mind. First: register an account with your e-mail and password. Second: download the software on your Windows machine or Macintosh, and install it. Third: select your files or let the software do the selection for you. There is no need to mess around with menus or other complicated items, because it is all done automatically.

Once you have installed the software, your backup starts with uploading the selected files. With the new version 2.1.1.9 of JustCloud the service uses Amazon S3 servers, which speeds up the backup significantly and also adds another layer of security to your files. Another advantage is that the JustCloud client is a very lightweight piece of software that does not take much system resources and thus doesn’t slow your machine down during backup.

Manually select your files or let JustCloud do the work for you

The backup process

There are a couple of options for backing up your data: you can hit the button “backup now” and your selected files will be backed up automatically. However, JustCloud is a completely automated online backup solution. That’s why it backs up your data automatically every day. If your data changes quickly and constantly you have the option to purchase hourly backups as well. But most of the time this is not needed. This service would be perfect if there were an option to activate continuous backup, meaning that your computer would get backed up on the fly. There are other online backup services that do offer this but they are a little more expensive.

The JustCloud client provides you with a good overview of your backups

Here is a crucial tip: go into the settings menu “backup settings” and then click on “backup selection” and set the file size limit to “unlimited.” Otherwise, JustCloud would only back up files that are not larger than 1 MB. Personally, I don’t understand the reason for this setting. Why would anybody want to backup files that are smaller than 1 MB? I urge the developers of JustCloud to change this standard setting because I think many people would not be aware of it, and consequently a lot of files could ultimately be lost.

You should set this to “unlimited” to make sure all your files are being backed up.

As I’ve mentioned before, JustCloud not only backs up your files but also, you get a 1 GB syncing folder that gets added automatically to your file system. It is called “sync folder.” You can open that folder and just drag and drop files into that folder that you want to keep in sync among all of your devices. It is a nice addition if you don’t like to sign up for other services like Dropbox, for example. This way, you’ll get an all-in-one solution without the need to juggle multiple accounts.

Backup status

Whenever you upload files to JustCloud you’ll get a detailed overview of the file batch that needs a backup. This way you can see how long it will take to upload your files and also how many gigabytes the folder contains. With JustCloud everything is about easy online backup. However, I’d like to see some more options here. For example, I’d like to prioritize my files that I want to back up first. Let’s say you are working on an important presentation for your client and before you hit “save,” your computer crashes. Everything is lost. It would be a shame if JustCloud could not back up that presentation in time for you to use it because it was dabbling around uploading James Bond’s “Tomorrow Never Dies.”

Get a detailed overview of your backup progress

I have been talking to the developers, and they told me that they were going to implement this function in future versions of JustCloud. This is also something I like a lot: being a young start-up from the UK they are very open-minded and are willing to share information without hesitation. This transparency is important to me, as I know that I’m talking to real people there.

When you’re not backing up files, JustCloud gives you an overview of how much available space you have (which is quite unnecessary as it offers unlimited online backup, so I pretty much don’t care how much space there is left) and also how much space you have already used, how many files you have backed up, and what your backup schedule is. One great piece of additional information is that you can see when your last backup was and also when you have scheduled the next. This way you can be sure no data is going to be lost in the case of hard drive failure or other computer failures.

Performance

I’ve been testing JustCloud now for a couple of months. I used to be very unhappy with its backup speed, to say the least. However, JustCloud just updated to Amazon servers which are known to be blazingly fast. I noticed that immediately when I started to upload my 1-GB test folder. It got pushed in less than 35 minutes, record speed for online backups. Many online backup services decided against Amazon S3 servers because they are quite expensive, but not JustCloud. Also, knowing that Amazon servers are behind the infrastructure of JustCloud I can be sure that my data is safe.

The test folder I uploaded is a mixture of photos, videos and MP3s. I tried to emulate typical files that users might upload to JustCloud. Also, there are both larger files and smaller files, as they behave differently (as opposed to uploading just one file of 1 GB in size). JustCloud handled the backup quite well, first scanning the folder the files were in  (here, I must say, the performance can be improved) and then preparing them for backup.

Security

Security is one of the major issues when thinking about online backup. You need to make sure that nobody can spy on your data. Especially when you have sensitive files that are crucial to your business or personal use. Hackers are everywhere, and especially as a Windows user your PC is prone to attack. However, in many cases the best security isn’t worth a dime if you don’t choose your passwords wisely. That’s why it is important to set up a secure password when registering for JustCloud or any other service. Don’t use 123456!

With a secure password in place you can safely upload your files with JustCloud as it uses the Internet standard AES encryption. This encryption method is also used by banks and other institutions that rely heavily on data security.

But as I said, the best security isn’t worth a dime, if the bottleneck is the user himself. Make sure your antivirus software is up to date and your system is clean. Otherwise, you’re making it easy for hackers to intrude into your backups.

Restoring your files with JustCloud

Restoring files from JustCloud  is as straightforward as the backup process. Just open up the client and click on “restore files” and select the files that you want to restore. JustCloud gives you the opportunity to backup multiple PCs at an additional cost. That’s why you have to first choose the machine you want to get a restore of. Then you can go down to the file level and select individual files and folders or do a full restore of your files.

The restore process is a crucial part in any backup routine. That’s why it is important that is works flawlessly. I tried to restore a big folder with photos I have taken over the years and the restore process was quite speedy. Obviously it is going to take longer than just downloading any file from the Internet because JustCloud needs to repackage the files from their servers.

I was gladly surprised that I could do a restore of my files even while my backup was running. This was a feature I have missed in other online backup services. After downloading the files you get a new folder that looks like this: “JustCloud_Restore_Date_ID” that will allow you to identify clearly when you restored and what. Also, it retains the file structure.

[Show as slideshow]

File syncing and sharing

One of the major benefits of JustCloud is that it combines online backup with the ability to share AND sync your files with yourself or with friends, family and colleagues. Unfortunately, file sharing can’t be done from within the client software. Instead you have to login to the web client and select the folder you want to share. This works similarly to selecting your files to restore. On the right-hand side just click on “Share a Folder,” then you can send an invite to anyone via email. However, for your partner to see the files she has to sign up for free for JustCloud.

With JustCloud you get a 1GB syncing space for free. If you want more, you need to purchase extra syncing storage of up to 20GB. Yes, other providers do offer more syncing space for free, for example SugarSync, but there is not yet an online storage provider that offers unlimited online backup with free syncing for more than 5GB. If you don’t want to purchase extra syncing storage it is certainly a viable option to combine several free syncing providers. But this leads to more administrative effort required, which I personally dislike. On the long run you’re going to lose a good overview of your files if they’re all over the place.

As I said, JustCloud installs a folder on your system that functions as your synced folder across your devices. As with backup and restoring, syncing was fast as well. As JustCloud is available for Windows and Mac you can install it to any of your devices and sync your data. Unlike Dropbox, JustCloud does not offer LAN sync, meaning that it is a little bit slower because it has to download the files to sync from the JustCloud servers instead of your local network. This is a feature request I’d like to direct to the JustCloud staff, too. However, their focus is on backup and storage and that they do very well.

[Show as slideshow]

Mobile access

With the web client you can access your files wherever you are. Doesn’t matter if you’re using somebody else’s laptop or your mobile. If you have access to a web browser you can access your files wherever you want. I love to be able to access my file via my iPhone. There is no app to download yet but the client website is optimized to be viewed on small screens, which makes it really easy to navigate in your backups and choose (or search) for files that you need now. Have a look at the pictures I have taken off my iPhone to get a good idea how JustCloud looks in all its mobile beauty:

[Show as slideshow]

Customer support

If you are having problems with your online backup, customer support is very speedy. Even the best online backup service cannot guarantee 100% successful backups. Therefore, if you are having problems with uploading or downloading any files it is important to have contact persons available. JustCloud offers a 24/7 emergency support which gets you somebody on the line fast.
My contact with support has been superb. They always respond fast, and also they figured out a technical problem I faked.

Certainly, sometimes I had to wait a little if my question was tech-related. Even though I couldn’t find bad reviews about JustCloud’s customer support, there will certainly always be somebody who couldn’t get the support he or she needed. Especially if you are getting successful with your service, there are a lot of customer inquiries that need to be handled. But overall, JustCloud manages that pretty well.

Bottom line of this JustCloud review

JustCloud is a powerful yet easy-to-use online backup service. Since it’s an unlimited backup solution you certainly get your moneys worth for only $4.95 per month if you choose the biannual plan. If you are a geek you probably miss some options that other online backup services offer, such as file prioritization or continuous backup. However, if you just want to backup your files, JustCloud is the way to go. You don’t have to think about which files to back up–it just backs up everything.

JustCloud is still a relatively unknown backup company and one might raise a question about its reliability. I’ve been testing the service now for a couple of months and all I can say is: yes, it is reliable. What makes me so sure is the good communications you get with the team. If you have any questions, just contact support, and they are going to answer you within minutes.

For me, online backup security is very important, as I store a lot of sensitive data online. JustCloud doesn’t give me a false sense of security, it just protects my files well, using industry-standard encryption. If you’re looking for a hassle-free online backup solution I recommend giving JustCloud a free try to see whether it fits your needs. The good thing is, you are not committed, and you can test the service for 14 days.

The post JustCloud Review: Online Backup and Storage Made Easy appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

Windows 8 was just released by Microsoft and now it’s time to look at online backup services that support the new operating system. And if you’re thinking to upgrade your system you might want to hold your horses for just a while because not every provider is ready for the change.

Backblaze

Backblaze just announced that their software is Windows 8 ready. As Backblaze is a very trusted online backup provider you can safely update to Windows 8 if you are a Backblaze customer. If you’re thinking to sign up you may do so right now. They’ve tested Windows 8 with 500 beta testers and are now ready to release a stable version.

Carbonite

Carbonite still hasn’t published any official statement about their support of Windows 8 – so you might want to be a little careful in that regard. I’ve checked all their channels (Blog, Social Media) but couldn’t find any information.

Livedrive

If you are into syncing and file sharing in combination with backup you might want to look at Livedrive. They have officially announced Windows 8 support. Also, they are working on an Android version of their mobile app.

Mozy

Mozy is also one of the bigger services out there but they still remain silent about their support of Windows 8. They will not provide any technical support if you encounter some problems. You may test Mozy for free on Windows 8.

Crashplan

Crashplan is the one backup service that support the most operating systems that’s why I wonder why they haven’t announced Windows 8 support on their blog. Crashplan has a free 30 day trial so you may try it out.

Backup Windows 8 with File History

Windows 8 comes with a built in backup solution called file history. You can use that feature to store your files locally but still there is missing an integration for off-site backup. I wonder why they haven’t used SkyDrive in combination with File History.

All-in-all, it still very early. So if you want to make sure your backups work allright, you should still wait with your upgrade. If you have a new PC with Windows 8 installed and are looking for online backup then I can recommend Backblaze.

The post Online Backup for Windows 8 appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

Many people ask us how it is possible that some providers offer unlimited online backup for their clients. Of course this seems rather suspicious to some of you and rightfully so! How great would it be not to worry about space anymore storing everything you like in the cloud. It can even be a great relief if you don’t know how much space you really need and just want to get your data backed up like this lady of 87 here.

It is about the business model

Online backup services do have a certain business model that allows them to offer infinite cloud storage and backup. However, nothing is infinite, neither is storage. So providers like to advertise with their service being unlimited but they would obviously go brooke if you really had unlimited files to store. That’s why you could call that a soft lie. But in the end that’s what we’re used to in advertising in general. There are lots of promises out there that are not entirely true, shampoo commercial say they give your hair more volume, shavers overpower themselves with a ridiculous number of blades etc.

So how do those services make money?

Unlimited online backup services make money off of the low end users. Those are users who only store a couple of gigabyte on the companies’ servers. They lose money on the other end with high end users who store way over a terabyte of data. But as numbers show, there are more low end users that make this business model quite profitable.

Plus, storage prices decrease constantly, while 1TB of data cost thousands of dollars to host ten years ago, today it is only a fraction of that cost.

Unlimited online backup services have their own data architecture

Many online backup and storage services use Amazon to leverage their data infrastructure to offer highly available storage to their customers. While that is pretty effective the downside are the relatively high costs compared to an own data infrastructure. That’s why Backblaze for example developed their own storage system. Thus making it possible to deploy unlimited online backup for as low as 5$ per month.

What’s the future?

So where are we heading? In my opinion, we’re going to see less providers that offer fixed gigabyte data plans. Companies will realize that people don’t want to think about backup or storage they might need. So a general shift towards unlimited online backup is foreseeable.

For consumers this is a very good sign as competitions is good for innovation and pricing. With storage getting cheaper every year we will see how providers fight over customer by lowering their prices. Also, demand for backup and storage will likely increase as our lives get more and more digital.

The post How can online backup be unlimited? appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

When marketing cloud based backup and recovery services, it does matter if you are a vendor who markets cloud based backup and recovery on a large scale or on a small scale. This is because of the differing needs for home based services and SOHO (Small Office Home Office) offerings and finally, the megabucks operations of big businesses or even for that matter small and medium enterprise.

For instance, the recovery time for home based solutions can be in the order of a day or two or more whereas SME’s need un-throttled recovery and at the most an overnight lag in the delivery of storage media. On the other hand, the SOHO segment needs un-throttled recovery as soon as possible but it can do without media delivery. Further, the requirements are different in the area of vendor data storage location as well. Take for instance the fact that SOHO and SME segments differ in terms of regulatory compliance requirements with the former opting for native storage and seeing foreign locations as a disadvantage whereas the latter would certainly prefer foreign storage as an asset.

The next aspect in selling is to do with the fact that managed service providers or MSP’s and resellers need to have a varied marketing and selling plan based on the evaluation of the customer’s requirements. For this the MSP’s need to prepare a matrix comprising of the differing needs and requirements of customers and then they need to tailor this to the specifications of individual customers. The easiest is the home based customer who needs the cloud based backup as an option to exercise in case of emergency. Whereas for the SME’s and the big businesses, data backup is a necessity as well as regulatory compliance specific and hence the mission criticality of this cannot be overemphasized more. This places these segments as distinct as chalk and cheese and hence, this is an aspect that needs to be factored into the marketing plan.

The other aspect in marketing cloud backup services is to do with the geographical location of the customer as well as the vendor. As explained earlier, the differing emphasis on criticality of storage and backup means that the vendor has to have multiple locations catering to the geographical needs and the perceptions of offsite storage. Indeed, the country of location matters even in this globalized world and hence, this is an aspect that should be taken into consideration as well.

Finally, the meat of the sale is in the commissions that the MSP’s and the resellers get as well as the margins made by them when selling cloud backup services. In this respect alone, it makes sense to keep the number of channel partners low so as to remove unwanted complexity and eliminate redundancy. Considering that the cloud paradigm is all about efficiency, this should be on your mind as well when you finalize the sales and marketing plan for your cloud backup services.

It is important to note that mastering the complex process of tying up with partners and reaching out to customers must be done after adequate due diligence is done on the strengths of the partners and the requirements of the customers. It might be necessary to have preliminary studies done to assess the markets and potential partners before launching your service. The point here is that it is better to test the waters before you take the plunge and it would be a good idea to launch a pilot service or a proof of concept cloud backup offering or service.

The post Smart Selling Tips for Cloud Backup and Recovery Systems appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

If you have been using the previous Mac OS X versions such as Lion, have you upgraded to the much touted, awesome Mountain Lion? The world seems to have taken note of the most sophisticated computer operating system yet. I expect a flurry of updates and new releases to catch up with the demand for new Mac OS Mountain Lion. Among the other news today, the first one in the list is already keeping up with the Apple release:

Dolly Drive Upgrades Itself

Following the release of Mountain Lion on July 25^th ( available on the Mac App Store) Cirrus Thinking – the guys who make Dolly Drive for Mac – have announced a recent upgrade that makes Dolly Drive available for Mountain Lion users. Although in Beta right now, the service looks promising indeed. Dolly Drive  is as pro-Apple as it can be. The makers of Dolly Drive were Apple fans and they founded the company Cirrus thinking in the year 2009. Dolly Drive is an all-in-one cloud backup service that also included sync-and-share, versioning, etc. Dolly Drive also allows you to run a clone of the new Mountain lion OS instead of actually updating your present OS version.

G Cloud Backup

Are you an Android user? Did you know that there’s an Android application called G Cloud Back up to back up your mobile device? This fits neatly with another blog posts I did a long time ago on doing a cloud backup for your mobile phones.  According to Mark Chubb of Phones Review  G Back up is much like iCloud and it backs up your contacts, call logs, music, videos, audio, podcasts, documents, and much more. Install the app, pick and choose your files, and do your back ups. Data transfer is reportedly secure, auto-backup functionality, and much more.

Backblaze Gets a $5Million Boost

A Gigaom release reports that Backblaze – the 5 year old cloud backup service – saw TMT investments funding $5 Million in fresh funding.TMT investments is a U.K based venture capitalist firm. The California based backup company now aims to focus on marketing and for recruiting staff.  Backblaze, until now, was severely short-staffed while seeking to do everything by themselves instead of outsourcing support or operations.

What got to your ears? Did your eye catch anything? Do let us know and we’d love to include weekly news snippets (while we give due credit to you, of course).

The post Heads Up Monday: Dolly Drive, G Cloud App, and BackBlaze appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

If you are reading this, chances are that you have heard about cloud computing and its associated benefits. Now, have you ever thought about the possibility that you can play your favorite computer games over the cloud? If you haven’t, here is a small primer for you.

Cloud Gaming is the latest trend in cloud computing and is set to revolutionize the gaming industry both from an end user as well as a provider perspective. There is no need to save your games on your computer and worry about portability when you are away from your computer. Instead, you can play your favorite game on-demand whenever and wherever you want because the game is no longer only in your hard drive but is located over the cloud. This means that like pretty much everything associated with cloud computing, it is anywhere and anytime kind of model. Apart from this, the producers of the games benefit as they need not worry about piracy. This is because they no longer need to distribute physical copies of their games that can be copied and pirate and instead can ask users to sign up to their cloud based gaming offerings for a fee.

Apart from cloud gaming, the cloud can also be used for backing up your games. In the same way in which we discussed how you can access your games anywhere and everywhere, by saving your games in the cloud, you save yourselves a lot of trouble. As a matter of fact, many gaming companies have introduced the cloud backup option for online and computer games. This makes it easier for users to relax and be secure in the knowledge that even if their hard drive crashes, their collection of unlocked games that they have amassed over a period of time have been backed up in the cloud. As a user, you have the double whammy benefit of storage along with anytime and everywhere access once you have access to the cloud. Indeed, as we shall see, even reputed game producers like Microsoft have jumped on to the cloud gaming and cloud backup option with their Xbox.

The way Xbox allows you to store and access your games are so easy and effortless that you might wonder if they are actively pushing cloud gaming and cloud backup as viable alternatives. Indeed, the backing up of your games to the cloud is easier than doing the same to your USB drive for Xbox. What more, once you start the backup process, you can forget about it till it completes as it runs in the background and uses idle time memory and processor speed to complete the backup process.

Finally, the cloud paradigm is revolutionizing just about everything connected with IT and hence, cloud gaming and backup represents the frontiers to which the cloud providers can push themselves. So login to your cloud account and start the backup right away; or sign up for a cloud gaming account.

The post Welcome to the World of Cloud Gaming and Backup: The On-Demand Model appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

Anything can happen, anywhere & anytime. In the web-driven era that we live in, things happen every single day. Cloud back and storage scene isn’t very different. What strikes me most is like this story one famous actor once narrates in a movie about “…taking things for granted”. He says:

“A scientist once conducted an experiment where he takes this big cauldron of boiling water and throws a frog into it. The frog, understandably, jumps out pronto.”

“He then takes another cauldron of water at room temperature, and then lets the frog in again. This time, the frog doesn’t resist and makes itself at home. After a few days, he starts to heat the cauldron very slowly. So slowly, in fact, that the frog has no idea that the cauldron is slowly heating up, with the water ( and the frog in it). Now, since this was very gradually, the frog was oblivious to it. By the time the water came up to its boiling point, the frog was dead in the water. It was too late for it to jump”

Complacency can kill (at least, it killed the frog)! Why talk about the story? Here’s why:

The Skydrive Rumors: No Cloud Storage or Backup Solution is Permanently Safe

Mathew Humphries, on geek.com, reports Skydrive’s account suspensions on account rule violations and that almost broke my heart. I can imagine the users’ whose files would get inaccessible. I did mention earlier that not every thing we use has to be flawless, and that it’s better if we come to accept that we are always on the south side of vulnerability.  Reading Mathew’s post reminded me of the CISPA and the SOPA acts. Microsoft suspends your Skydrive accounts if it finds “inappropriate content” and by that, it could mean anything thanks to its overly broad definitions, according to Mathew.

Not convinced? So you think Skydrive is flawless? Please head over to these conversations on Stackexchange.

A WM Poweruser community published a feature titled, “Microsoft Monitoring, Censoring Skydrive uploads ”. Read the post and then the comments below and you’ll see the conversations that can pull you up on your toes.

IDriveSync Goes Social

Of course, some of our cloud backup favorites such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Crashplan are already social friendly but iDriveSync has a new twist to the tale: It now offers Visual Sharing™, a brand new drag-and-drop user interface, a high-standard Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256), and the much-promising Facebook Integration.

According to a PR release on Market Watch , Visual Sharing™ for iDriveSync allows a simple, drag and drop interface for users to save photos, slide decks, and other files from their computer into their browsers. The Facebook integration now not only lets you connect with friends (Facebook’s part of the deal) but also share content while it stays on the cloud (iDriveSync’s part) You can mix and match your friends and sort them into groups for convenient sharing, and iDriveSync works seamlessly across OS platforms. .

Did you have any trouble with Skydrive? Have you used iDriveSync yet? Do let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

The post Heads Up Monday: Skydrive Cloud Backup Rumors & IDriveSync’s New Features appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

If you are a CIO of a SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) or the IT manager in a startup, you might want to think twice before investing in a traditional tape or disk back up option. This is because the advent of the cloud computing paradigm has meant that it is fast emerging as an attractive option not only for Software as a Service but also for data backup and recovery.

Of course, chances are that you might not realize the relative advantages and disadvantages of traditional storage versus the cloud option till you compare their ROI’s (Return on Investment). For this to happen, you need to be aware of the costs of each option along with the benefit that you are getting from each. For instance, a typical tape backup option for 2 Terabyte storage with an annual growth of 30% might cost you around $37,500 along with a manpower investment of around 400 IT hours. On the other hand, a cloud based option might cost you around $12,000 per annum with a manpower investment of 30 IT hours. Mind you, these figures are at actual costs and have been calculated using an ROI calculator.

However, before you jump to the conclusion that cloud is any day better, ponder for a moment as to whether there are any hidden costs that you might incur. For instance, many cloud providers charge you for transactional expenses which are a derivative of how much data you send over the network. And when one is talking about humongous amounts of data, it makes sense to include this cost in the calculation as well.  Of course, there are many cloud providers are still hazy about this aspect and hence this can become an unknown. However, calculating ROI is more of an art than a science and especially so when you are comparing the returns for tape and traditional options with cloud based options.

The point here is that one needs to make educated guesses and with a bit of accuracy, you might get a fair idea of how much it costs. Further, when data storage is guaranteed to be plentiful then users have a tendency to store more and these jacks up the data that is being sent over the network and into the cloud.

The moot aspect to be noted here is that one might not be making a strict apples to apples comparison when calculating and comparing ROI’s and this is where one needs to be resourceful. The subjective aspect of the comparison comes into the picture as well since tape backup is a labor intensive and logistics dependent mechanism whereas a pure cloud backup is transparent and completely virtual. So the aspect that one needs to consider into the equation is whether the ROI for the cloud backup option should include the elimination of most part of the labor involved into the benefits tab. Without considering the other aspect of having a cloud backup of a cloud backup as a cost this equation is incomplete. The reason for this addition is that many cloud providers do suffer downtimes and outages and hence a failsafe backup would also consider alternatives. Further, there is a need to factor in the transition aspect as well as the fact that training of the IT personnel needs to be taken up to migrate from a tape based backup option to a cloud based one.

An ROI calculation for the cloud backup and recovery option would necessarily have to be done from the perspective of tallying the costs individually and then weighing them against the benefits of going in for that option. The question to ask here is whether your SME or Startup is generating the volumes that are required for cloud based backup options to be feasible. Finally, one needs to weigh in the possibility of choosing an established cloud provider with an emerging one given the reliability and security aspects of this. In conclusion, calculating the ROI is the first step before a true blue analysis of the options can be undertaken. Hence, proceed with due caution and care and include the unknowns along with the knowns.

The post Get the Most of your Storage Choices by Comparing the ROI’s appeared first on Cloudbackuping.

“Backup Your Data Or Else”, you did hear that statement, haven’t you?

The New York Times recently carried a feature that extolled the importance of backing up your data. Your laptops or desktops are subject to risk such as tornadoes, wildfire, theft, or loss. Physical hard drives are just as susceptible. Cloud backup does seem to be a gift, don’t you think? On those lines, here are a few news snippets you might like:

SugarSync Gets on Samsung Galaxy 3

Stephanie Mlot of PCMag reported recently that Samsung now added more to the bells-and-whistles that come with Galaxy III, its premier phone offering. Guess what the latest addition is? SugarSync now finds a way into the hands of the ever-growing Android fan-base. By latching itself to one of the best Andriod devices ever, SugarSync just got closer.  Samsung will make SugarSync available to its users through AllShare Play, which incidentally allows users to share video, music, and photos.  AllShare Play users get 5GB of free space and then move up (in relation to amount of space) from 30 GB all the way up to 500GB.

Cubby

Did you know that the Popular remote-login software LogMeIn software is preparing to get into the cloud backup and storage market to take on the likes of Dropbox, SugarSync, and Live Mesh? The signs are surely on while the market place is heating up. To start with Cubby now offers at least 2X benefits per referral (1 GB per referral)  when compared to DropBox. It now has an improved iOS interface that lets iPhone or iPad users open, drop, upload, or download files straight off their devices to the cloud and vice-versa.

Pretty neat if you ask me!

Is Windows 8 Playing catch-up with Time Machine & iCloud?

David Meyer published an account  of how Microsoft has detailed and emphasized the use of the In-built backup system in Windows 8 (much like how the iCloud and Time Machine works for the Mac.

At a time when you’d think they might probably try to use their own SkyDrive (a perfect response to Apple’s iCloud), they choose to use their “file history” system which does provide complete backup for your files but only to a physical hard drive.

Surprisingly, Bohdan Raciborski who is the program manager for Microsoft reveals that only 5% of all Windows consumers ever backup their files and hence leave themselves vulnerable. So, Windows 8 now makes it work just like Mac’s Time Machine does – insert a physical hard drive and the backups happen automatically.

How secure is your data? What are you doing about it?

The post What’s On Monday? News You Might Like appeared first on Cloudbackuping.