Backup as a service – A Comprehensive Guide For 2021

Introduction 

If you are not from a technological background then you would be completely unaware of the concept of backup and its growing importance in our digitized world. Through this article on Backup as a service we aim to make you understand the principle behind BaaS.

1. What is Backup?
2. Backup as a service
3. Advantages of backup as a service
4. Features of a good BaaS provider
5. Concerns while picking BaaS provider
6. Backup as a service providers in the market
7. Some other backup as a service providers in the market
8. Some terms related to BaaS

1) What is Backup?

Backup refers to the copying of a device’s storage and internal files and store it somewhere else so that no information is lost incase some damage is incurred by the said device, usually a computer or laptop. Backup prevents data loss which prevents permanent loss of sensitive and private information. Information repository models are used to provide structure and depth to the data that has to be backed up and sort out the same.

2) Backup as a service 

Backup as a service or BaaS is a modern day initiative or attempt that involves the purchase of backup and recovery services from an online provider. Instead of data being managed by a centralized system, an outside private, public or hybrid provider manages the content. Backup as a service takes out the pressure and load off hard disks and other offline modes of backup by storing data through online administrators.

3) Advantages of backup as a service 

• Ease of management is increased by lesser rotations of storage devices, manual movement of data to offsite locations, performing of more efficient deduplication. So the BaaS takes care of everything.
• BaaS takes up a monthly fee which makes it for businesses and entrepreneur startups that are on a tight budget to pay for what they actually need rather than the combined package. The cost pf ownership also gets cut down by a great margin because there is no hardware component involved that might become useless due to wear and tear over the years.
• A great deal of added security and safety comes with the usage of BaaS. Regular testing of the customer’s data and running various safety procedures on it are part of the ongoing process to ensure unparalleled security.
• BaaS enables continuous business operations by storing data in a remote location so that any harm that might be caused due to malicious attacks like ransomware attacks can be avoided.
• Ease of addition and removal of data and infrastructure is extremely easy with backup as a service as it provides the customer with cloud backup.

4) Features of a good BaaS provider

• Recovery support – A good BaaS provider will provide regular knowledge of the customer’s data and round the clock data recovery through chat, email or call. In case of any disruption, the BaaS would speedily recover all the data.
• Security – A good BaaS would employ world class security protocols. Top notch safeguards like network firewalls and data encryption should be there at the data center
• Recovery SLA (TRO/RPO) – Three terms known as SLA (service level agreement), RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery point objective) should be clearly defined while choosing a BaaS provider. Both of these values should be as low as possible because RTO defines the time taken for the recovery process whereas RPO defines the frequency of data backup.
• Customized services – Any efficient BaaS provider would be flexible in its functioning in the aspect of increasing its data back up frequency and the IT infrastructure of data storage.
• Disaster recovery – Good BaaS providers would always accommodate the data to be stored at multiple locations geographically so that the data is not permanently damaged or lost even if one of these locations is compromised due to some cyberattack on the provider itself.

5) Concerns while picking BaaS provider 

• cross platform issues may arise 
• added bandwidth load
• security breaches in the form of encryption, access control lists and role-based authentication.
• Compliance concerns 
• Increased cost

6) Backup as a service providers in the market

• CrashPlan – $2.99 per month, per computer will give you 10 GB data backup space 
• Carbonite – $99.99 per year for home plus, $59.99 per year for the basic package and $149.99 per year for the home premier package 
• Back blaze – Unlimited storage at $5 per month, $4.17 per month if you sign up for a year and $3.96 if you end up signing up for 2 years 
• Mozy – $9.99 per month for an approximate value of 125 GB that can work for up to three computers and $5.99 per month for 50 GB but this works only on one computer.
• Live drive – $6 per month involving unlimited cloud storage, $12 per month package – briefcase with gives 2 TB storage and $19 per month package that gives a whopping 5 TB storage facility.
• SOS online backup – $9.99 per month for 100 GB space, $15.99 for 150 GB storage space and $19.99 for 250 GB storage mark 
• Amazon glacier – Stores data at the cost of $0.01 per GB per month

7) Some other backup as a service providers in the market

• Zmanda cloud backup 
• Zetta.net
• Yandex . disk
• Tresorit
• Tarsnap
• Syncplicity
• One drive 
• Mi Media
• Mega 
• Media fire 
• Sugar Sync
• Jungle disk 
• Keep Vault 
• Jump share 
• Intronis 
• Iperius online storage 
• Infrascale 
• Idrive 
• Icloud 
• IASO backup 
• Elephant Drive
• Egnyte
• Drop my site
• Dropbox
• CrashPlan
• Comodo backup 
• Cloud Me 
• Cloud Berry backup 
• Box
• Barracuda backup service 
• Baidu cloud 
• Acronis 
• Unitrends Vault 2 cloud 
• Trend micro Safe Sync 
• Spider Oak

8) Some terms related to BaaS

• Zero knowledge – refers to when the service provider has absolutely no clue about the pw that the user has set 
• Limited MB plan – here payment is done in terms of how many computers are involved
• Unlimited MB plan – storage per computer is unlimited
• Sync – basic and regular synchronization between the various computers involved like that of the user and the BaaS provider manager
• External hard drive support – whether or not the external files can be backed up because of the replica of the those files at some other geographical location 
• Unlimited bandwidth – if capping of bandwidths is done, it leads to certain restrictions on that particular account. 

After reading this article, we hope that you have a better understanding of Backup as a service and the various aspects linked to its functioning, applications and management in   today’s world. We hope you found this article to be of use.

Conclusion

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