On-Line Information Services Deliver Disaster Recovery for Smal l Business

M. G. Stevens

A new hands-off approach to backing up your PC promises to make it easier and less expensive to safeguard your important data, while giving new meaning to the term on-line storage . Traditional backup nomenclature defines on-line storage as data that's stored locally, usually on a fast hard drive. However, SureFind Information (Pittsburgh, PA, (412) 788-2511 or (800) 787-0009), in partnership with CompuServe, hopes to popularize another type of on-line backup in which users automatically back up their important data files to remote electronic "vaults" over a modem.

Ed Sarkisian, president of SureFind, stresses that the new service ta rgets small businesses and home offices that don't regularly back up critical data and want a solution that's easy and automatic. "This is not designed to back up hundreds of megabytes and gigabytes," Sarkisian says. Similar services have been available to small- and mid-size LANs for at least three years. For example, a national service from Minneapolis-based Rimage Televaulting backs up NetWare networks via 128-Kbps ISDN lines and analog modems.

The SureFind/CompuServe service was expected to go active in March at an introductory cost of $19.95 and a $9.95 monthly fee. Unlike the current CompuServe service that lets you store files, the SureFind/CompuServe service includes client software to perform backups unattended. In case of interruption, you can resume backing up from the point of interruption.

To use the service, download SureFind software from CompuServe, perform an initial system backup of up to 100 MB, and then set your software to automate weekly ba ckups of up to 5 MB (data backups over the 5-MB minimum cost 50 cents per megabyte). Backup data is stored for three months on WORM optical media and then stored off-line, only a software-initiated request away. SureFind offers new users two recoveries in the first month to prove reliability. In March, SureFind was expected to provide a Windows 3.1 client. Windows 95, OS/2, Windows NT, and Unix (but not Mac) clients are slated for release later this year.

Another market entry, XactLabs (Seattle, WA; http://www.xactlabs.com ), will offer full on-line storage/retrieval at geographically mirrored sites via several major communications providers by summer. Michael Peterson, president of Strategic Research (Santa Barbara, CA), a data-storage consultancy, says that the primary benefit of services like SureFind is " hands-off automation that actually gets users to faithfully back up their data." Peterson predicts that the annual U.S. revenues for this type of on-line backup service will grow from a current $10 million to $200 million over the next three years.

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On-Line-Backup Pros and Cons

PROS

-- Easy, automated backup
-- Data compression speeds transmission
-- Data security encrypted by user
-- Reliable off-site storage on optical media
-- Avoids up-front hardware costs
-- Expandable storage
-- Reliable data network


CONS

-- Possible software bugs
-- Increased monthly cost when you exceed 5-MB limit
-- Limited platform support
-- Possible limited bandwidth of end user
-- Data over three months old stored off-line
-- Limited frequency of backups with basic package