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:
Constructive comments generally and comments regarding any recommended features for future polls are welcome.
Online backup, being a technical service normally comes at a premium to include and allow for technical support. Up to now, the only real exception to this was free or nearly free online backup which obviously could not come with premium support but was an option considered by home users for whom commercial online backup didn’t seem a viable option.
Standing in the midst of this are many online backup resellers who can and do provide technical support for their clients. In many cases, for these resellers, the learning curve has been steep. This has left them with a small residual income and significant technical commitment to those clients whereas the online backup provider seemingly sits pretty with the lions share of the income and level 2 support only.
Enter trade only online backup. These online backup dealers (for that is to a point what many of them are) can decide to move their clients to a provider of their choice. One consequence of a bulk move is more competitive pricing. Another is increased margin based on market experience.
Another is often a reduction in the clients data retention archive. This can happen because of the following circumstances.
If a company uses online backup, there will be a software application on their systems or network which controls the backups. If they move from one provider to another with the full co-operation of all parties and the new and old provider use the same software, there is the possibility of everything continuing from were it left off.
It is more likely however that one of the following will be the case and any one can be enough to cause the clients archive to be reduced or lost.
Different online backup software used at new and old provider level.
Client churn for reseller financial gain resulting in a client being persuaded to move from one provider to another in a situation in which this is not in the clients interest but provides financial reward for the reseller.
Old provider not paid up to date and possibly not willing or obliged to assist for this or other reasons.
Technical difficulties during the move causing a reduced level of service for the client.
There is nothing wrong per say with trade only online backup. Indeed, most analysts will agree that trade only online backup is not alone here to stay but set to corner a large portion of the ever growing online backup market.
Backupanytime is a business to business online backup provider and our resellers generally have small client numbers. We (and our resellers) are currently positioned in the retail online backup market. The trade only online backup market is not our focus at present. It is likely however that within the next year or two, most online backup providers (including ourselves) will have entered this market and will offer trade prices(as against retail margin discounts) to resellers with technical capability rather than simply commissions to sales agents. Indeed, many industry analysts believe that a small number of super data centres will become the trade only online backup providers and that online backup companies will take on more of a client advisory and reseller management role. The physical backup costs are set to become a price market whereas professional services, consultancy and configuration on a business to business level is where the money will go.
This should encourage greater client focus and significantly more outsourcing of online backup software and hardware requirements to super data centres with a trade only online backup leaning. Already, web hosts have entered the online backup and are offering very competitive rates. The uptake has been limited because of the obvious disparity between responsibility for a website which is public and highly confidential data which is crucially private and paradoxically can but can not be lost. It is this factor coupled with economies of scale which will see online backup providers team with data centres specialising in online backup.
Data breach at a New York bank possibly affecting hundreds of thousands of consumers.
Bank of New York Mellon have misplaced a data backup tape containing account information (including social security numbers) of up to possibly hundreds
of thousands of clients of Connecticut. There may also be information of millions of people worldwide in the data. Crucially, it is believed that the tape was not
encrypted.
The scale and complexity is furthered by the presence among the Connecticut clients of names pertaining to the United Bank of Bridgeport. Bribgeport
provided New York Mellon with the data as part of an investment sales opportunity.
The information was lost in February which puts this case in the majority league of corporate and banking data loss scenarios in which data loss is reported late if at all.
The data was given by Bank of New York Mellon to an Archive provider, Archive systems on 27th February. Ten tapes were provided. Nine are accounted for and one
has yet to be found.
The People’s United Bank reported the breach shortly after New York Bank of Mellon informed them.
Data loss is an ongoing problem. Some critics will argue that data of this type simply can not be manually handled and transported and that the failure here was that the
data was backed up online. While this may seem an obviousness which is difficult to argue with, the real problem however was the failure to encrypt. Granted, if it was
backed up online as a service it would have been encrypted by default. Companies however currently still have the right to manually transfer data. They must however
put safeguards in place and this is very complicated it the data is manually handled.
Banks are increasingly treating data transfers like cash transfers. If it absolutely has to travel in a van it will be guarded. If it doesn’t have to travel in a van it will be wired.
Whereas cash has to travel by road, there are limited scenarios in which data has to do this as it can be transferred in encrypted format online. So why do companies
transfer data manually? You may well ask, but despite and in part because of the seemingly unending manual transfer data loss stories it is fast becoming a method
of the past.
Bank of Ireland stolen USB key on November 7th, 2008
Bank of Ireland stolen USB key
Subscribers and regular readers will recall the .
Blank passports and visas stolen in hijack on July 29th, 2008
Blank passports and visas stolen in hijack.
