Cloud Computing - Part 6 - Online Backups - What if it happened to you?

Last week there was a major fire at Waterloo plaza.  It destroyed several businesses including a bar, some restaurants, and an optometry business that lost charts for 40,000 patients.   See the Waterloo Region Record article: http://news.therecord.com/news/article/700674

I'm sure it's not something any of the affected business owners ever contemplated or imagined could happen but it did.  This happened right in our back yard.  Of course this wasn't a disaster on the scale of a hurricane in New Orleans or an earthquake in Haiti but this clearly has had a major impact on these businesses.  

If this was to happen to your business would your business survive?   How do you know?

I was planning on re-starting my blog posts on ready-to-go applications of cloud computing anyway but this just reinforced the idea that one of the most important cloud computing technologies is online backup.   It's not sexy... it's not exciting and, if it's working properly, you'll likely even forget about it but it could very well be the most important cloud computing technology that you implement!    I don't know if the businesses affected by the Waterloo fire had offsite backups or not.  I hope they did but statistics show that most businesses either don't have one at all or don't have a reliable offsite backup and disaster recovery system and, in the event of such a disaster, they won't be able to recover.

So, what's the deal with online backup?  There are many different ways to build or implement an online backup system and there are many vendors doing just that.   All of them, though, have some common features and functions.   So, here's how they generally work.      You install some backup software and/or hardware on your server, desktop systems and/or network.   The software (or hardware) backs up selected files or entire systems but, instead of writing the data to a tape drive, it typically compresses and encrypts the data and transmits it over your Internet connection to a data vault out on the Internet.   The backup can be scheduled to run each night or some of them even run continuously.    If you ever need to restore data you copy the data back from the Internet vault to your system (typically using the vendor's software to do so).   

The advantages to online backups are clear.   There are no mechanical tape drives or tapes to fail (and they always do).   Once it is set up, it can be set-it-and-forget-it as no human intervention is required to change tapes.    Nobody has to remember to take tapes offsite (and protect them from cold, sun, magnetics, etc).   They also are typically cheaper to implement than tape backup systems.   Finally, they have nearly unlimited capacity so you're never in the position of outgrowing your backup system.  

You may ask... how is online backup a cloud application?   Remember that two key enabling cloud technologies are high speed Internet and virtualization.  Well, your high speed Internet is used to transmit and restore data.    Some implementations of online backup make use of virtualization technology in the vault so that your systems can be re-created virtually in the event of a major system disaster.

Many online backup solutions have appeared over the past year or two.  Some of them are tailored to home systems or very small businesses and others are geared to larger companies.   As our first venture into creating a concrete cloud computing application, we developed our own "Total Restore" service for our clients (see http://www.carefreeit.ca/services/business-continuityctr).     It combines both hardware and software and your data is backed up to an appliance on your network AND shipped offsite to our vault.   We believe it's very affordable at $99 per month and allows for unlimited data capacity.  The really cool thing about it (in my humble opinion) is that the backup appliance we install on your network can, using virtualization technology, take over the role of your server system if it it should become incapacitated.   We're now backing up 15 client servers to our vault in Toronto.

Over the coming weeks I'll continue to explore other applications of cloud technology as well as looking at other industry events and providing the odd tech tip.   As always, your comments, suggestions and ideas are welcome.

Free Anti-virus Software? Why Not?

Several months ago Microsoft fairly quietly released a free anti-virus tool called "Microsoft Security Essentials" (MES).   We've been testing it since then and are happy to report it works great!   It's fairly compact and non-intrusive - unlike some other products you have to pay for.   It runs on all versions of Windows - including the new Windows 7.    It doesn't scan incoming e-mail but, generally speaking, most Internet Service Providers who provide e-mail hosting are scanning your mail before you even see it so that's probably not such a big issue.

Since it doesn't include any kind of central management or centralized update facility, the target audience for MES is very small businesses (one to five users) or home computers.     It would be too time-consuming and difficult to manage in a medium or larger office.  

The independent reviews on MES have generally been good.  Here's one if you're interested:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/smb-security/articles/64365.aspx

So, if the anti-virus software on your home computer is up for renewal you might want to check out Microsoft Security Essentials and save yourself a few dollars.  

You can download it at: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

As always, remember the best protection against viruses is common sense.   Stay off shady websites, don't trade files online, and don't download anything unless it's from a reputable source.

The iPad Phenomenon is Underway

The new Apple iPad went on sale in the U.S. this past weekend and early reports are that up to 700,000 of them have sold already.  Amazing.   So far, only Wi-Fi models are available.   The 3G ones (that you can use on the telcom data networks) won't be available for a few months yet.  That means that, right now, you need a wireless network to go online with it.   Neither model will be available in Canada until the end of April and there is still no pricing information available yet.

So, what can you do with them?  Well, you can watch TV programs, watch movies, surf the Internet, do e-mail, play games, and read books.  That's just a start.  All the apps written for the iPhone or iPod Touch will run on them as well as new applications being written specifically for the iPad.  

Do I really need one?   That's the question many people are asking.   Some commentators are saying that it doesn't provide anything that we don't already have (for example, on the iPhone) - just a bigger screen.  Other people are saying it's going to revolutionize our lives.   The truth is probably somewhere in between.  

It's true that if you just think of the iPad as a gaming device or an e-book reader or an e-mail client then you probably will have a hard time justifying the $500 or more it will cost you.

I believe the key determinant in whether it really does "revolutionize" our lives will be in the new applications that we haven't yet envisioned and can't imagine.    Take the iPhone as an example.   Tonight I was out but was able to watch the opening game of the new baseball season live on my iPhone.    You don't have to go back too many years to a point where it would have been difficult to imagine watching a live sporting event on your phone.  Certainly I wouldn't say that has revolutionized my life but the point is to hold off judgement on these new devices until you see how they're used once people get them in their hands and the application developers start to use their imaginations.

Will I buy one?  Yes, I likely will.  But, I'm going to wait a bit.  With the iPhone, they really got it right with the third generation so I will wait until at least the second generation of the iPad before I get one.  That will give Apple the time to work out some of the design flaws and it will give me some time to see how it's used.

Watch out for Phishing Scams!

There seems to be another rash of phishing e-mail scams making the rounds lately.   These e-mail messages look very authentic and the links inside of them even look real.   Check out the one below that I received today.  It is claiming to be from Scotiabank and is asking me to log in to their online banking site in order to "update and verify" my information.  If you had clicked on the link embedded in the message it took you to a VERY real looking website that you'd have to look very closely at to determine it wasn't really Scotiabank. It has the real Scotiabank logo and look-and-feel.  The website has since been removed so somebody (probably Scotiabank) got to them.  
Anyway, the point is that banks NEVER ask you to verify information in this way and they NEVER send out unsolicited e-mail to their customers.   So, when you see this type of e-mail, delete it. 

As always, please be vigilant for strange-looking e-mails. In this case, a little bit of paranoia is a good thing. 

Here's the e-mail...  it lost the formatting and logo when I copied and pasted it into the blog but you can still the idea and see how real and official-looking they can be.

______________________________________________________________


Dear Customer,

During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification

procedures, we have detected a slight error in your online profile.



Hence our online security team has suspended your online banking

service. As a security measure, your account needs to be updated.

Please update and verify your information by clicking the link below:



https://www.scotiaonline.scotiabank.com/online/start.jsp?update=



Sincerely,

Scotia Bank.

Online Customer Service

________________________________________