Accessibility refers to how your company — and other authorized parties — can access its cloud backup data. After all, the whole point of enterprise online backup (aside from regulatory compliance) is to be able to access the backup data when you need it.
So in evaluating cloud backup vendors, in addition to asking about performance, security, and price, it’s important to ask about cloud backup accessibility, for various retrieval scenarios. For example:
- Can users recover individual files or email messages — or entire directories — directly, without having to go through the help desk?
- Can a system administrator initiate a large retrieval via their mobile device?
- Can the backup provider quickly put a large retrieval — one that would take too long to download across the network — onto a hard drive or storage appliance and ship it?
- Can IT connect the backup to other cloud services?
1. Who Can Access Backups?
Individual consumers access their own typically single-user, single-machine account. But a company backup can be supporting anywhere from a few dozen to tens of thousands of machines, drives and users, not to mention multi-person workgroups, and server data like email and SQL databases.
So it is important to know whether access is restricted only to IT staff, or whether end users can access their backups — and whether it’s possible to limit end-user access to read-only, with no delete privileges.
Similarly, it is important to know whether you can access your data from any web browser (e.g., on a computer or mobile device), using the passwords; or (increasingly unlikely) just from the site and original computer.
And is it possible to access the backup service via a smartphone, tablet or other mobile device, either to view or download files, or to request a larger restore?
One access option from Zetta is web-based retrieval of individual files or whole directories by anyone so authorized, including the individual data user.
And with the Zetta system, access is always authenticated and logged, and is auditable via customer viewable logs.
2. How Easy is it to Access my Data?
Can authorized users easily reach and navigate backups? How easy or hard is it to find files — does the service allow you to find files by searching file names or file contents?
Once files or directories have been selected, how quickly are they available? If files need to be rebuilt (e.g., incremental updates applied to the original baseline save), does that take seconds? Minute? Hours?
Once the data is available, does the user need to download it to access it, or can the cloud-based data be accessed — mounted as a live remote drive or directory — directly by applications?
With Zetta, data is stored in native file format exactly as it exists on the original server, preserving familiar file paths for easy access. The file structures at Zetta can be browsed via the web or mounted and accessed directly by a remote server or desktop for a near instant and seamless recovery.
3. Can Data Be Physically Shipped for Larger Restore Requests?
Unless you have a superfast connection between your site and the backup service, large restore requests — say, a terabyte — may take unacceptably long to download. (Assuming you can’t remotely mount the restore.) This is particularly if the restore needs to go to a remote site with a comparatively lower-bandwidth Internet connection.
Here, couriering a hard drive, or even a NAS appliance, may be faster. Does the backup provider offer this option? If so, what does it cost? And how is the shipment secured, e.g., what encryption options are there, and how are encryption keys conveyed? Is the drive in a physically protected, secured container?
Zetta provides options for disk-based transfer of data into or out of the Zetta environment. In almost every case, however, clients find that with Zetta optimized data transfer, it’s just as quick, or quicker, to move the data over the network with as much as a terabyte moving per day.
4. Are Older Versions of Files Available?
Many backup services support journaling, versioning, or other ways to preserve older views of files and filesystems. If you think you may need to look at versions that may be months-to-years old, be sure to ask whether this is possible — and how easy or difficult, and quickly or slowly — this can be done.
Zetta provides a comprehensive and easily browsed or mounted snapshot tree for instant access to past versions of files. Optionally, the volume can be “locked” to prevent deletion of file versions, insuring compliance with retention policies.
5. Beyond the “Backup Silo” — Can Other Cloud Services Access My Backup?
Historically, backups were only requested by IT or end users. But many cloud applications are set up so they can interact with each other. Can you enable another cloud service to access your backups? For example, can you point a cloud-based virtual-machine image of one of your servers at the backup, for quicker, zero-CapEx Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery?
With Zetta’s file mount capability, virtual servers can directly mount the Zetta file system for direct file access.
As you can see, understanding the accessibility parameters for a backup service can — and should — play an important part in selecting a cloud backup provider for your company. Because you don’t just create backups, you are likely to want to use them.
To learn more and explore other aspects of the cloud backup decision and to download a copy of the Cloud Backup Decision Guide, visit the Cloud Backup Decision Center.
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