Backup Anytime

Vembu StoreGrid announce Cloud AMI (Amazon Machine Instance)

Hot on the heels of the RBS announcement of Amazon cloud compatibility, Vembu have announced  their integration. These announcements are not a reaction to each other but more evidence of a general shift to Amazon cloud compatibility.

The Vembu Technologies press release states “StoreGrid Cloud AMI would be instantiated in Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2)” and goes on to explain that “an Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) would be mounted as the back end storage for StoreGrid.”

These changes add another option regarding a way of doing things for service providers. Many, possibly most providers will retain their own private data centre space. Amazon comes with some advantages and possible disadvantages which in brief are as follows.

Possible advantages for service providers of using Amazon cloud computing integration.
1. Recognised international player storing data.
2. Very competitive pricing despite increases by most non Amazon data centres.
3. Amazon is a storage giant and partnership with them should bring efficiencies.
4. Guaranteed up-time.

Possible disadvantages for service providers using Amazon integration.
1. Significant dependence on one entity.
2. Entire business model based on Amazon system and pricing stability.
3. Somewhat complicated up and down transfer costs which are difficult to control.
4. Possible reduction in redundancy for providers going to the nth degree with own servers.
5. Geographic barriers regarding physical access to server instances. (virtual or real)
 
The upshot of all of this will be a new breed of online backup company. This will be the embodiment of a marketing company which focuses purely on selling while trusting Amazon to take care of everything else. The difficulty here will be service as such an entity may not be equipped to deal with emergency disaster recovery requests. In addition, with all the advantages of cloud computing and VMware, there is still the difficulty of the real level of support a company can provide if a mission critical system based thousands of miles away is down.

You can read more about VEMBU Technologies specific Amazon implementation plans on the Storegrid site.

cloud

Online backup is simple to define for a number of reasons. Online backup has been around for some time and therefore there is general consensus as to what it is. In addition, the scope of the term online-backup is quite narrow despite the vide varience in service types and providers. Online backup (raw) is a facility which allows a copy or copies of data to be backed up to a remote location using data communications rather than device transport.

The term cloud comes from the common cloud illustration in data diagrams. A cloud is effectively a facility used for storing data which is not managed by the end user but subscribed to (financially or by advertising based membership) and managed by a third party. This provides data centre infrastructure to the small business or individual and data availability anywhere within reach of the internet. The cloud allows group colaberation and can be used to host data and applications.

You can see therefore how distinct online data backup and cloud computing are. In effect, online backup has little more in common with cloud computing than offline backup bar the online adjective.

So why are they confused? Users of cloud computing often incorrectly believe they have an “online backup” of their data. The truth is often  nearee the opposite. Cloud computing users commonly have no local copy of the cloud data they use and therefore if anything should happen to the sole online copy, there is no way back bar provider protection. Cloud users therefore should be seeking a local backup facility to protect their online data whereas local data users will commonly have an online backup solution to protect their offline data. The paradox is not entirely unlike boat anglers casting their lines as near the shore as possible while shore anglers will tend to cast as far out from the shore as possible.

The intention is to cover all bases so if your primary live data source is online you should be backing it up offline and vice versa.