Fully Managed

Backup as a Service (BaaS)

Our fully managed online backup solution takes the pressure of managing backups away from you and your IT team, reducing operational overheads. Should a restore be required, you can simply log a ticket with our service desk for the data to be recovered.
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How SureSkills BaaS Works

Backup As A Service FAQ

WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT

BAAS Introduction

As IT organisations look to be more agile, lower costs provide the opportunity for innovation, many are looking to at their Backup solutions. And while enterprise cloud Backup solutions have been available for some time, adoption is now increasing across all sizes of organisations. There are many questions about cloud Backup solutions, in this comprehensive FAQ we aim to give you the information you need to understand the options and select a Backup solution to suit your organisation and its data protection strategy.

What is Backup?

It is the process of having your files and information stored on a separate drive or media to your main productions systems. It is part of Continuity Management, an essential part of every business plan.

Traditional versus Cloud Backup?

Traditional Backups involve copying data to a media – usually tape, and then transporting the media to the remote data storage location off-site. Not only are these solutions outdated, but there are also multiple reasons why traditional tape/drive Backup methods can’t meet the needs of a modern “always-on” organisations. 

Cloud Backup is the name given to the Backup process of transferring a copy of your files, applications or database to a secondary, offsite location over the internet so that your data is safe in a remote location protected from on-site incidents.

What is Backup As A Service?

Backup as a service (BaaS), is a way of storing data remotely in the cloud and having a service provider such as SureSkills design, manage and maintain the infrastructure, support services and reporting.

What kind of data and applications can I Backup?

Most Backup solutions allow for Backups of all data and various applications depending on the computing and data environment. Here is a list of the most common data backed up: 

  • Emails and communications
  • ERP systems, Bookings systems
  • Credit Card Transactions and Receipts
  • Client Information Files and CRM
  • Invoicing, Accounts Receivable & Payable
  • Personnel Files and Payroll
  • Project Management files
  • Other Frequently Updated Files

How frequently should I Backup my data?

How frequently always depends on the results of a business impact analysis. When performing this analysis, you’ll create a series of scenarios of data loss. These scenarios can then be used to predict the size and scope of the losses you might incur if specific data is partially or fully lost? 

That said, in most cases you can Backup your data as frequently as you like or can afford. Backups can be made manually or can be scheduled as a single or recurring instance made daily, weekly, monthly or on a custom schedule. Schedules can be updated or cancelled at any time. 

How do data retention schemes work?

Data-retention depend on where you want to roll back to and is dictated by your data retention policy (a set of practices and guidelines). For example, a typical Backup solution would have daily retention for seven days, while weekly schemes hold data for one month, and monthly schemes hold data for one year. At the end of each period, the oldest data set is rotated out and the first "delta Backup" made becomes the oldest available restore point.

What should I consider in a retention scheme?

  • When was the data created and when was it last used or referred to 
  • What is the purpose of the data collected, to justify retention and disposal periods 
  • What regulatory obligations do you have to comply with 
  • Do we have a way to identify the same data across different data sources 
  • Consider all data, everywhere, from all data types, stores, and sources 
  • Aim to have a unified, intuitive interface to view the state of data

What are Seed and Delta Backups?

The first Backup is a "Seed" (a complete and full Backup), the next and subsequent Backups are referred to as "deltas" (changes only), and are considered a "full Backup" in that you should be able to restore all or individual files from either the seed or delta.

Why do most organisations do Delta Backups?

A Delta Backup to a Seed back up delivers a "full Backup" each time, but saves computing and storage space on the Backup server thereby decreasing the amount of time each subsequent Backup takes to complete.

What are the different types of Backups?

Type

Pros

Cons

Backup time

Restore Time

Storage Space

Full

Full copy of data

Most see it as best protection

Time consuming

Requires a lot of storage space

Slowest

Fast

High

Incremental

Less time and storage space is used than full Backup

Takes time to restore

You will need all of the Backups in the chain to make a full restore

Fast

Moderate

Lowest

Differential

Shorter time to restore than a Differential Backup

Can grow big in size compared to Incremental Backup

Moderate

Fast

Moderate

Mirror backup

Fast as it copies files and folders to the destination without any compression

Lo needs larger storage space

Only the latest version of the data is stored

Fast

Fast

High

Are my Backups secure?

This depends on your supplier and software. By default, SureSkills Backup solutions encryption happens over the wire (OTW) with AES 256-bit encryption. You can also choose to store data in encrypted format using AES 256-bit.

With BaaS, can I Backup open files?

By default, SureSkills state-of-the-art technology (Commvault) is able to handle most open files running on the OS. In rare cases, if Backups fail because of open file limitation, there are plug-ins to get improved open files handling. Generally, we don’t need an open-file plug-in unless we see errors in your Backups for open files, in which case we can address the issue as it arises.

What are the benefits of Cloud Backup?

It is reliable and easy to manage - when your cloud Backup is set up, it requires little effort to maintain. 

There are normally cost savings for small to mid-sized organizations versus traditional media backups. 

It is considered secure as the data is held off-site on a separate network, helping to protect your business from certain types of cyber threats like ransomware. Even if you suffer a data breach onsite, you have access to your secure backups in the cloud. On top of that, SureSkills offer 24/7 monitoring, management, and reporting. Ensuring that your data is safe at all times. 

To most businesses the best advantages of cloud backup is that it’s scalable. You can store as much or as little information as you need, and you only pay for what you use.

Tips for choosing technologies?

In the past, most organisations relied on tape and spinning disks (HDD) for backups, maintaining multiple copies of their data and storing at least one at an offsite location. Today always-on digitally transforming world, tape backups in offsite repositories often cannot achieve the necessary business agility to restore business-critical data. For this reason, many organizations are turning to companies like SureSkills for cloud-based backup (BaaS) solutions.

SureSkills IT Consulting Services Overview
SureSkills expertise

World-class Enterprise IT and Business Services

With more than 20 years experience in IT solutions & services, customers rely on our expertise to guide their IT projects from concept and strategy to successful implementation to continuous improvement and ongoing support. SureSkills offer a Managed Service or a Project Service - on hardware & software infrastructure installation and security management of these systems -  You Choose. 

SureSkills Back Up As A Service includes - 

  • 365 backup
  • backing up office 365
  • backup and restoration
  • backup as a service
  • backup from cloud
  • backup systems
  • backup with cloud
  • cloud backup
  • cloud backup for servers
  • cloud backup storage
  • cloud data backup solutions
  • cloud disaster recovery
  • data protection
  • data protection solutions
  • data protection storage
  • office 365 backup veeam
  • software for backup
  • storage backup
  • storage management
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1-4 Terminus Mills, Clonskeagh Road,
Dublin D06 VY62, Ireland
Tel: +353 1 240 2222
info@sureskills.com

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Urban HQ, Belfast,
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