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Frequently Asked Questions
Remote Offsite Data Management - RDM
PRVNAS provides RDM services to our clients who
understand just how valuable their data are. These
are the FAQ we have received from them. Please read
them all, or move on to an area of special interest
to you.
Importance
Data
Criticality
Availability of Service
Reliability, Safety & Privacy
Ease
of Use
IMPORTANCE
Why is RDM so important to our company, we only have five
people here? Just how much critical data could we
possibly have?
RDM is
very very important, if not a necessity in this day
and age of networks, viruses and worms. Small
businesses are at a higher risk of data corruption,
deletion of files, total hardware crashes that make
retrieving that data next to impossible. Small
businesses just don't have the resources that the
Fortune 500 companies do. Any data loss from a
small business could and many times does cripple the
business into closing its doors since most have no
idea what to do afterwards.
What’s all this talk
we hear about disaster recovery and remote backup?
In a
disaster, simply, you lose all of your data and
probably a lot more, not just a file or files. And
if your backup files are in the same location as the
disaster, hope dims. Most of the backup providers
market their software in a manner inspired by fear,
PRVNAS
feels that reality is best.
An
example: Jane is usually the first person into the
office and finds out it’s been broken into, or
burned down, etc. Valid points, but the risk of
loss from theft, fire, or natural disaster is far
less than the risk of data loss via accidental
deletion, corruption, viruses and worms. We have
also have seen where a terminated employee played
havoc as well.
DATA CRITICALITY
What is critical data? Isn't it everything on the
hard drive?
Critical data is not your entire hard drive, unless
you want it that way. Typically it’s data like
office files, database files, email, address books
and contact lists. These data, when deleted or
corrupted, affect a business the most and cannot be
restored via reloading from a software vendor’s
disk. We can guide you, but it is your decision
since you know your data the best, to determine
which file(s) are critical for backup.
AVAILABILITY OF
SERVICE
I
see your hours are from 4pm to 7am EST time. Why is
that and what happens if I need a restore outside of
those hours?
Those
are our normal hours because that’s when almost all
of our clients’ choose to back up,
but,
-
We always have staff available to
support you when needed.
- We can also train you on how to use our software so that
you can restore a file or folder yourself. Some
clients are not comfortable with this, so we are
always only a call away.
Your offices are in GA and TN, does that mean you
only do business there or do you have clients
elsewhere?
We
have clients on a global basis. We use remote tools
to help install and configure our RDM client if
travel from our offices is not feasible.
RELIABILITY,
SAFETY & PRIVACY
When’s the last time
PRVNAS
was unable to restore a client’s file?
We
don’t know. It has not happened.
OK,
so you backup our data on your servers. What keeps
you from losing it?
(Perhaps the most asked FAQ.) PRVNAS
has a 4 stage backup process including offsite
transfer to another server farm outside our
location. We know of no one else that does this,
period!! We go to great lengths to provide the
solid service that we feel is needed in the market
today.
What is your privacy policy? I keep getting all these fine
print documents from my bank and credit card
company?
We’re
so glad you asked, and cutting through the legalese,
(please see our contract for that, but it’s pretty
close to what you see here.)
PRVNAS
will not divulge, in any way, your name or contact
information to anyone or anything without your
express written consent to a request from us. And
the only time we will ask is to have a client
volunteer as a reference for a potential client.
Our data is transferred over the internet, doesn't that
make it possible for a hacker to grab it and mess
with it and send it back to your server?
NO.
We use the internet, but we also use government
standard 128-bit encryption and have the ability to
go much higher if needed. This makes your data next
to impossible to hack. As far as a hacker grabbing
the data while “in stream” to us, messing with it,
and sending it back to us, just isn't possible. For
one there's the encryption where even if “they” did
get some part of a data packet they can't read it.
In fact it took a major university 62 weeks just to
crack a 10,000 byte file (quite small) with standard
DES encryption.
When
your data is transferred, our servers ONLY accept
the data backup stream from your computer name, user
name, password and address.
We
have a DSL line, but we normally turn our machines
off when we leave for the day. Doesn’t leaving a
machine on leave us more vulnerable to a hacker?
Perhaps, but more vulnerable is a matter of degree.
Since you already have a high-speed Internet
connection, with the RDM service
PRVNAS
assumes that you’ve installed the appropriate
firewall software and taken precautions for
unauthorized access to your system.
PRVNAS
performs security services as part of our offerings,
just as we offer RDM. We would be happy to review
your security setup. For clients who’ll be
installing a high-speed line in order to take
advantage of RDM, we recommend a security review.
How
often does your client backup our data and how long
is that data available on your servers?
Our
standard method for our clients is a full backup on
the install date. Incremental backups are done
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Full
backups are done Wednesday and Saturday.
NOTE: Some databases need full backups, as
“incrementals” don’t work. Don’t worry, anything
needing daily backup, will be.
We
have a restore window of 60 days. That’s right, 2
months worth of data is restorable. We know of no
one else that does this or even has the resources to
do this. Plus, most do a full backup only once a
week.
We
backup to a zip disk, tape drive, or a CDRW; isn't
that enough?
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. We know from
experience that it doesn't take much to break the
internal mechanics of a zip disk, making your data
useless.
Tape
backup is useless more often than not. (Why? You
ask.) Well, 60% of the time the backup software
isn't even set up right to backup the critical
files. Tapes are very easy to break not to mention
the sinking feeling when you do try to do a restore
and your tape drives just eats your tape into swiss
cheese.
PRVNAS and everyone that works here have at some point in their career worked
for a large company and have seen just how
UN-reliable tapes really are.
Most
large companies use what is called a redundant
backup. Redundant backup is where they use tape and
then use remote backup software; this gives them the
extra peace of mind when something goes wrong. (Note
the "when" not if comment.)
CDR-CDRW
is pretty good and much better than zip disks and
tape, but they can still break or get corrupted from
heat. More times than not if used with the backup
software, then close to 75% of time the software
wasn't setup correctly to backup the right files.
Our receptionist does our tape backups every night; so why
do we need RDM?
Now
please don't get us wrong, we love our receptionists
but we wouldn't put that responsibility on them. A
true story.
After
talking with a prospect we advised them that it
would be in their best interest to look at what was
on the tapes to make sure it was backing up their
database that had cost upwards of 650,000 dollars
over the past 2 years. We popped in last night’s
backup. To their surprise, next to nothing was even
on the tape and no trace of their database. They
just stood there kind of like deer in headlights.
We
asked to see the tape from two nights ago. In it
went, and again nothing. OK let’s try 3rd night’s
backup we said. “Umm… we only have 2 tapes.” Funny
thing here was that we’re sure we looked at them
like we had lights in our eyes. We had to
verify that they only had 2 days worth of a backup
so if something was missing prior to that, they
couldn't get it back. They simply
told us that they needed our service and wanted a
complete backup done right then. Needless to say we
took care of them just like we do for every client
we see.
OK, we’re good with the whole data-over-the-internet thing,
but how about your company and employees? Can't
they see our data? Read through it and such?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
We cannot see your data on our servers; it’s
encrypted at your site before you send it.
We know we’ve got your files, but
PRVNAS
has NO interest whatsoever in their content. Even
if we were to peek, and only at your written
request, all we would see is a weird grouping of
letters and numbers.
EASE OF USE
If we need to restore like just one or two files or maybe a
folder would we have to do a complete restore like
we do with tape?
No,
nope, No way. Our RDM software allows you to pick a
single file, files, or folders, or a combination of
them for restoration.
Do you use the same backup software that your clients use?
Yes we
do. We’re human too, and delete files on our
laptops and desktops from time to time that we need
to restore.
What happens if we do have, say, a hard drive crash?
You
will need someone to reinstall the operating system
(OS), such as Windows 98 or if you’ve got a
MacIntosh computer, ?????. If you’re outside our
market we suggest finding a repair shop to do this.
(You should make arrangements with more than one
shop NOW, if you have not done this already) If
you’re in the GA/TN market we can do the reinstall
for a nominal fee and then restore your data after
the new hard drive is installed.
Also
if you’re in the GA/TN market you can opt to go with
another one of our services called HDGhost. This is
where we come into your office and literally get a
complete copy of your hard drive and keep it offsite
here at our server farm. The average time it takes
to reinstall an OS with all the software that you
had on it before your crash is anywhere from 3 to 5
hours. With the HDGhost service we can have you up
and running in about 30 minutes after the new hard
drive is installed. At that point we simply do a
restore from the last night’s RDM.
What about the overtime expense for one of our
people to run the backup?
There
won’t be any OT due to RDM. Our software is setup
to run the backup unattended at a time
of your choice and to send the pre-determined file(s)
and folder(s) of your choice.
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