Online Backup is now becoming more popular among consumers and businesses. Online data backup is finally becoming popular IT Service, primarily due to its pervasiveness and widespread availability of broadband connection.
The consumer faces many challenges as a result of this shift. Once a technology considered to be the domain only of the largest, well-funded companies, it is now a highly-profile service that offers high reliability. The current trends can be understood by taking a historical look at data backup and management, and the technologies and business models that have shaped it. To make the most of their idle servers, wholesale online Data-Mart companies began advertising remote backups at ultra-low rates, hoping to capitalize on its newfound popularity. Data Storage and Online Data Repository firms are also everywhere. They offer a variety of products, which can confuse even the most experienced industry professionals. Most of these companies actually sell advertising, and offer data backups as a kind of loss leader to get visitors and advertisers to their site.
Computer data are more valuable than ever, but many online remote backup providers seem to think that businesses only want the cheapest solution. Misinformation reigns, marketing dollars fly, and corners are cut. As a forest and trees analogy, corporate America is blinded by price wars to the most important data management element they sought in the first instance – the service. This article explores the history and current state of the commercial data backup and storage industry, in relation to the different service levels provided by various types of companies.
A Brief History on the Remote Data Back-up and Offsite Data Storage World. Back in the 1980s, there was no online backup software available commercially. In the early 1980s, those who provided this service used a combination of communication, shareware, or other utilities that were not designed to backup remote data. It was true that there were no standard protocols for electronic communications, or graphical user interfaces to programs. Modems were stuck at 1200 to 2440 baud and the microcomputer industry was undergoing a lot of changes. Transferring large amounts of information became painfully slow. As technology advanced, the potential and prospects of the online backup and data management industry also improved.