Backup Anytime

Recent visitors may be familiar with our latest poll which is still running. Far from scientific, the current poll which was started on Monday of this week may run for a number of weeks before Backupanytime review the results. Rather than have the current poll results reviewed prior to the last poll we are therefore prompted to review the July poll results here and now.

In July we ran an online poll in order to determine the level of understanding of online backup which was attributable to our visitors. This was a visitor survey, not a test and therefore results are not scientific, are from a small sample and dependent on the respondents understanding of the questions and honesty in answering. All results have been rounded to the nearest digit. Backupanyime in reviewing the results found them somewhat limiting in scope of visitor knoledge assessment but of potential use from a web analytics viewpoint.

The Backupanytime review of the poll results are interesting.

The following are the main findings.

Visitors to our online storage blog are more technical than visitors to our online backup website.

This is not too surprising. The main site is kept simple intentionally to assist non technical owner manager visitors in making decisions regarding data backup. The blog however has a much wider focus and we allow a greater level of technical online backup information and increases topic roam in blog content.

Visitors to our data storage white papers are the highest qualified visitors we have.

Somewhat of a contradiction as the white-papers area is on the main site. Add to this that many of the white papers are of the ”for dummies” type and we can only venture that these technical visitors are reading from a common selection of technical documents. 

Most people visiting the data backup FAQ area are not Backupanytime clients.

This points to online backup frequently asked questions being used as a pre-purchase research tool as opposed to post purchase self learn documents. Most FAQ writers would find this interesting.

Almost half of our blog visitors are in a competing or complementary I.T. business.

Our target audience is the online backup end user and indeed the intended online backup end user but while the large number of trade visitors could be a concern, we are flattered that they find the site interesting.

Less than 40% of visitors are in Ireland or the UK.

This is a concern for us as our focus is primarily the UK and Ireland. Given that 60% of our visitors are based outside our target audience we will need to have this examined by experts. We provide services to clients outside of the UK and Ireland but to date this is minimal and support for UK and Ireland is uniform in time zone and language whilst being very close from compliance and legal viewpoints.

Almost twenty five percent of visitors had been on the site before.

Nice to see they are coming back. Not sure what this figure should be.

40 percent said they would visit again, half of those frequently.

I think that should be considered satisfactory.

How do these figures compare with Google analytics?

Some can not be compared such as user computer education and experience. Other data may be compared but does not colate at all. Our analytics figures show our home page to be the most popular starting point. The survey does not lean in that direction. Analytics shows a higher return visitor rate and a relatively high German and USA visitor rate which does not come through in the poll. Analytics also shows “Is tape dead?”  to be our most visited page outside of the home page. This does not feature in our poll at all.

In conclusion.

The numbers are not big enough and the period not long enough to draw any specific conclusions. We are however satisfied that visitors are finding the site for the intended search queries, are satisfied with the content, likely to return and often do. What about conversion you ask. Most of our clients hear about us through word of mouth. Only a handfull of clients per month avail of our services as a consequence of a web search. We believe however that the website is used by interested parties who found us through other mediums and have a look at specific pages such as the Backupanytime online backup review and testimonial page before calling.  In short, a small prcentage of clients find us because of the website. A large percentage sign up as a consequence of it after finding us.

Online storage, movers, shakers, mergers and closures.

With all the talk of anticipated consolidation in the online storage market due in 2009, it is important to be aware that so far 2008 has not been bereft of position grappling.

xdrive to close (Data backup planned closure)
As detailed in an earlier post, xdrive is to close in early January. This is a planned closure by a giant parent company. This most unusual move sees clients being urged to avail of competing services before the closure date. Not good for the online backup industry. Once bitten, twice as reluctant to give scarce funds and absolute trust to another provider.

Barracuda enters the market (Online backup shaker)
Barracuda online backup will be product and service based. Unlikely to be satisfied with a nich, Barracuda Networks will need to literally change the industry to encourage clients to shell out for online backup specific devices which become client property are are only useful while the service is being used and subscription is maintained. This may sound like a big ask but Barracuda have a history of success with this approach, specifically with their excellent anti spam product and service solutions which we can recommend.

Amazon diversification continues. So does Amazon downtime. (Online storage mixed bag)
Cloud giant Amazon continue to rewrite the online storage book and bring options and confusion to the market with their multiple service offerings, transfer charges and increased interoperability of support for both simple online storage and online backup for wholesalers. Fanfare aside, Amazon downtime this year moves it outside the gold standard.

MediaMax aka The Linkup closed. (Online backup unplanned closure)
Horrible outcome. A scase of clear client data loss becoming a complicated story. If you want to know about online backup horror stories, read the Mediamax online backup failure story.
IBM, acquire Arsenal Digital Solutions. (Online backup mover)
Big blue puts a little footprint in the online backup arena. This story is actually from December 2007 and is interesting not alone because it was felt at the time that big blue would want to become the number one player but also because this didn’t happen. This acquisition may not have created the monster it was expected to but it could happen yet. IBM must want to make the cloud blue with the IBM cloud. See IBM Online Backup.

HP launched its’ online storage product last April. (Online backup mover)
The UPLINE service is based on Opelins’ Titanize and is effectively the HP cloud. UPLINE was a most unfortunate name for the service which was used to make catchy negative media headlines when it went down. See HP Upline goes down.
RBS online backup launched their consumer product for online backup providers. (Online backup mover)
This product is Amazon ready and offers low per licence costs (given large licence quantity purchases) to online backup providers wishing to enter the consumer online storage market. The RBS software backbone is the strong point of this plan. The Amazon component brings potential cost reduction based on quantity and user activity but also the potential Amazon related downtime as detailed above. RBS will continue providing and supporting their award winning online backup software for service providers which in the main is not used as part of an Amazon service. This continues to be their major offering and has grown in success despite many new entrants.
VEMBU TECHNOLOGIES cloud compatibility. (Online backup shaker)
Since we interviewed Sekar Vembu, his company Vembu Technologies which is behind Vembu StoreGrid has announced cloud compatibility for VEMBU software which increases the storage options from VEMBU clients. VEMBU pricing for service providers is based on subscription (or annual renewal) rather than perpetual licensing. Many providers shy away from this model due to concerns about a reduction in ability to reduce fixed and per user costs should the market dictate this is required. It is likely however that such circumstances would dictate a reduction in VEMBU charges which would negate this issue.

Asigra sues Robobak. The “he said, she said” of online backup.
Legal confrontation is the online storage business is not unusual. Most such cases however centre around patents, intellectual copyright, copyrights and even trade names. This case case however is based around one company taking umbrage at the marketing approach and in particular some specific claims in online backup reviews and press releases said to be made by the defendants about Asigra. We stress that this does not relate to a Backupanytime review. We did however interview Ben Puzzuoli in September of this year and found him to be a thoroughly nice fellow.

EMC remain the most respected Giant in online storage. (Online storage Whale and shaker)
EMC already had status on the world of data management. Then they bought some in the form of three significant acquisitions. These being Retrospect backup, MOZY and Iomega external drives. EMC have very cleverly managed to utilise the EMC blue chip name and these acquisitions without prostituting the EMC name or courting controversy.
http://www.backupanytime.com/blog/2008/07/17/emc-corporation-merge-acquisitons/

By the way, 2007 is not over yet. There is more to come. We will report back.

In summary.

It doesn’t matter if you consider 2007 to be pre recession or post boom. It has so far been a busy year for online storage in just about every possible way. Next year will likely see more failures, more acquisitions and lower acquisition prices. What does this spell for the consumer? A dirty mix or risk and value. The bottom line therefore is to seek value for money. Any plan to avail of the cheapest online storage or online backup service will be a short race to partner with the weakest vendor.

All visitors are welcome to participate in this poll. Please be aware that any results only relate to those who participate and are not meant to be representative of any macro usage or opinion. Data may be reviewed by all users.

The above poll uses the following variables:

Security, Confidentiality, Data retention period, Price, Support, Interface and usability, Open file management, SQL and Exchange compatability, Frequent (free) software updates & Same region data store.

Findings may be published for this and other Backupanytime polls as Backupanytime review the results.

Constructive comments generally and comments regarding any recommended features for future polls are welcome.

Twitter backup. How to backup twitter.

Twitter is huge and unlike many things in the world today, it is on the up. If you don’t know what it is you shouldn’t be reading a post on how to backup twitter. So, now that you are still here, lets assume you not alone know what twitter is but you arrived here because you were looking for information on how to backup twitter.

Why would you do this?
The obvious answer is to protect your list of twitter followers and the list of people you are following. Not specifically to protect them personally but to protect the database of contacts you have built up over a prolonged period.

A much less considered but arguably more important reason is the real need to keep an accurate record of what you and those representing your organisation say and what is said to and about them. Why? Your own attitude to free speech and the balance between positive banter and a professional company profile are important. The attitudes of others and the legal interpretation are issues you have no control over and therefore, to protect yourself you need not only to agree on comment type but to retain a record of you tweets.
This may smack of censorship and overbearing monitoring but regardless of your attitude and the level of freedom you attribute to your own tweets, it is hardly a negative approach if you are simply retaining a record of your own communications.

Is this really necessary?
It may not be. Your own attitude however has no bearing on those in your twitter communities. A large twitter community of any type is likely to include litigious individuals who have rights which must be upheld. You are better armed to protect your name and business if you can review and if necessary reproduce content applicable to you  twitter account.

Ideally however you should avoid “bitter tweets”. Many real conversations however both on and offline are bound to contain an element of “tweet and sour” and it is for this reason primarily that you need to protect yourself. Keep in mind that the legal framework is complicated as you followers and those you follow could be from any worldwide jurisdiction. In our case, our leaning towards the legal and ethical behavior guidelines which are commonplace on Irish blogs may offer little relevance to twitter community members from other Countries.

How do you do this?
Thankfully there are a number of applications and services which can assist you. You may depending on personal preference and infrastructure to run with twitter online backup or twitter off line backup
I like twittersafe which is in Beta release at present but does what it sais on the tin and promises more on the twitter safe beta release page.
Another solution is to do it your self as advised on tweetcrunch.

Given the popularity of twitter and it’s increased uptake and heavy per user usage you will see more and more such solutions being released. If you know of one please comment so the information can be shared.

Online backup was initially the domain of University communities, then the military, soon afterwards major corporates. Large companies were still the greatest online backup uptake category in late 2007. This year however has seen significant advances in the adoption of online backup by small and medium sized business.

An online backup industry article from byte and switch dated 19th June 2008 quoting researchers In-Stat explained that firms with over 100 people on the payroll were three times more likely to utilise online backup than say a small business. What this article did not address however is that this disparity shows not only a reduction in the uptake differences between small and large companies but also a significant acceleration in the uptake of online backup on the part of small business. Large companies generally have greater uptake level in new technology anyway so the comparisons regarding online backup do not differentiate significantly from other technologies.

Additionally, many very large companies will implement and manage their own online backup system whereas small to medium companies will in the main not do this. This leaves small to medium sized business as the main focus of online backup providers.

This is further evidenced in reports from online backup providers as gathered and detailed by highbeam research. While major corporates will remain a target audience for online backup companies, most of the focus here will be partnerships or divisional services. The major focus continues to be small business and increasingly medium sized companies who need online backup services as an end solution on an outsourced basis.

Online backup market research is limited in usability as a point in time excersice as the market is continually in flux. General, ost believe near global consenus is that the trend for the vast majority of businesses is away from both local and self serviced data backup to online and outsourced.