Organizations today need to protect their data from failures, data deletion and ransomware attacks that lead to the loss of important company information.

Today, most customers use a local backup solution that does not properly protect against IT infrastructure failures and hardware and software failures that lead to the loss of important data. To properly protect organizational data, it is recommended to implement a cloud backup solution that lets customers copy all organizational data outside the organization to the cloud and keep the backup in a secure, protected facility available whenever data needs to be restored. Our cloud server backup solution is easy and convenient to use, providing uniform and unique data protection, cloud backup for businesses of all types of systems and databases, and restore of individual items or entire computing environments in a disaster.

Cloud backup services are available for IT service providers and integrators, allowing you to offer your customers advanced business backup through the service. The service is built on the world's best backup system and adapted to deliver it as a cloud service.

To provide our customers with the best backup solution, we chose to be Hosted Providers of Acronis backup in Israel, the world leader in cloud server backup. We can guarantee you the best and most sophisticated cloud backup service, with the services hosted on our own data-center infrastructure (i.e. our data center and cloud infrastructure), running on Acronis's advanced and reliable technology.

Key capabilities of DNS Cloud's business cloud backup service

• Cloud server backup (Windows and Linux).
• Cloud file backup from workstations (Windows, Linux and Mac).
• Backup from all virtualization technologies – VMware/Hyper-V.
• MS SQL and MS Exchange database backup.
• Data restore from the cloud to the customer's site and an option for local restore (an additional copy of the backup).
• System restore (servers and workstations) to different hardware (Universal Restore).
• Backup of other cloud services such as Office 365.
• Advanced RANSOMWARE protection for endpoints and servers, allowing automatic restore after files are encrypted.

Why choose DNS Cloud's service?

1. Experience: DNS Cloud has more than ten years of experience in the field.

2. Exclusivity: we are the only ones offering the software as a service / cloud service / cloud storage.

3. Convenience: DNS Cloud's service is easy and convenient to operate and protects all types of data and systems.

4. Security: DNS Cloud has invested in all the layers needed for secure backup and data protection. DNS Cloud meets the strictest security standards, including ISO 27001 and SOX, as required for companies under Israeli, American and international regulation.

5. Built-in RANSOMWARE protection – the system provides customers with advanced protection for servers and endpoints. Based on monitoring computing activity, the system can detect file encryption by ransomware, stop the encryption and restore the data.

6. Instant restore – the INSTANT RESTORE capability of DNS Cloud's backup services lets customers reduce restore and disaster recovery time to seconds by starting servers immediately on virtual infrastructure at the customer's site or on DNS Cloud's cloud infrastructure. The servers start without restoring data, so you can get back to work quickly in the event of data loss or hardware and software failure in the customer's computing infrastructure.

7. Full protection of organizational data – DNS Cloud's system supports more than 21 different platforms: endpoints, laptops, physical and virtual servers, enterprise databases and email systems such as Office 365, allowing you to back up all the business's data.

8. Hybrid configuration – DNS Cloud's backup solution lets customers back up organizational data locally and keep an additional copy of the data on DNS Cloud's cloud infrastructure. The local backup allows fast data restore, while the cloud backup of all data serves as an additional restore source.

Calculating the cost of downtime for your business

Many companies assume downtime costs are immediate (short term). Many don't realize that downtime has long-term consequences, and these can do the greatest damage.

The hourly cost of downtime depends not only on the nature of the downtime itself (think of a hurricane versus planned maintenance), but also on the time of day.

Consider this example: an American online retail company with customers in North America has its website offline at 2 AM EST. Common sense and buying trends tell us this is much less harmful to the business than if the system were down at 3 PM, because fewer customers buy at 2 AM. On the other hand, if the same company has international customers (European or Australian time zones), downtime at 2 AM EST could very well affect the business.

It is important to consider how time-of-day differences can change the impact of downtime on your business. These differences can be complex; for example, for the same company with overseas customers, downtime when most local employees are not working will not affect their productivity, but it also means they cannot help customers. Similar twists exist for downtime on weekdays versus weekends or holidays.

Based on these differences in downtime costs, and the fact that unplanned downtime can happen at any time, a simple technique for estimating the cost of downtime is to use the average of all hourly costs over a full week – including weekends. System downtime is at high risk during peak periods (making that downtime the most expensive), so be sure to account for downtime in these periods.

While planned downtime is usually less expensive (since it can be scheduled outside peak periods or after hours), if planned downtime requires overtime pay or extra employee shifts, these costs should be calculated as well.

The ongoing costs of damage to reputation and customer loyalty can be the most harmful, and this damage is not included in the hourly sales estimate. While some customers' business may be delayed, other customers take their business elsewhere – to your competitor. This loss must be taken into account when estimating total lost sales by increasing the impact percentage. If your business creates loyal customers and relies on customer recommendations (word of mouth), the impact factor will be much larger. Unfortunately, the cost of lost reputation is hard to quantify, and determining it requires a long history of data. Because of this, an educated guess of the cost of downtime must be made. Some companies choose to believe the future will reflect the past.

Downtime costs depend on:

• Overtime pay
• Work productivity
• Employee working hours
• Customer base (location)
• Customer service capabilities
• The ability to get systems online depending on the time of day
• Low and peak periods (weekdays, weekends and holidays)

Factors related to reputation and customer loyalty include:

• Suppliers
• Financial markets
• Business Partners
• Customer loyalty.
• Businesses that rely on your availability

To reduce the cost of downtime, you can implement a business continuity, disaster recovery or cloud backup solution.

How to choose a cloud backup provider?

Many customers are unsure which provider to choose for the service. Many providers offer the solution and it is hard to tell them apart. The right choice is very important for your business, because the provider holds your most important asset – your data – and must be able to help you in trouble if data needs to be restored (for example, if the data was encrypted by ransomware).

Here are some questions you can ask the provider to make sure you are choosing the right solution:

Data storage – It is important to find out where the provider keeps your backup – whether it is a protected, secure facility or whether the backup is stored on equipment in the provider's offices. A serious provider places the data in an external facility that maintains high standards, is guarded 24 hours a day and includes protection against power outages. Another issue is the type of storage the data is kept on. It is very easy for a provider to store the data on a simple, cheap system without advanced data protection and with low availability, without you knowing where your data is stored. Ask the provider what equipment they use, what level of resilience it has and what availability they offer. DNS Cloud stores customer data in a secure, high-standard facility on storage systems with the highest resilience in the field. The storage systems are designed for downtime of up to three seconds a year.

Backup software – The second important part of the solution is the type of backup software the provider uses to back up your data to the cloud. Choose a provider that uses the best technologies in the field and a system that can back up all organizational data from anywhere at any time. The system should support all server platforms – physical and various virtual ones, operating systems, applications, databases, and a variety of endpoint and mobile operating systems. It is important that the backup software can create two copies of your data – a local copy for fast restore and another copy in the cloud. Here too it is easy for a provider to save money and choose a non-leading solution just because it is cheaper, which will hurt you in the future in service level or in the ability to restore data.

Data restore – Ask your provider how long it takes to restore data, whether there is an option for fast startup from the backup without restoring data, whether restore to different hardware is possible, and whether the server can be started after a crash directly from the cloud without restoring the data (disaster recovery). Many providers know how to back up, but remember that you are actually buying a data restore solution that must work perfectly when you need it – there is no room for mistakes.

Information security – Another important issue is the security of the solution. Check whether your backup data is encrypted in the system and whether the communication between the backup agents installed on your network and the cloud is encrypted too. Make sure the provider has no access to your backup data (it shouldn't) and that it holds cloud information-security certifications ensuring it meets high standards and has orderly information-security policies and procedures.

The provider itself – If you got this far and the provider answered all the questions properly, there is one last and very important thing to check: what level of service the provider offers, how big the service team is, how many customers it provides similar services to, and whether it has references for you (ask for ones who needed to restore data). Quite a few providers offer the service "on the side" and it is not their core business – such a provider should not hold your most important asset – your data.

Five reasons why your business needs DNS Cloud backup

Flexibility is essential, because as your business grows, so do your computing requirements. Often your computing resources stay the same while the amount of data you create grows exponentially. You need to be able to protect countless machines running on different computing platforms, including mobile devices. With DNS Cloud's solution, remote data protection ensures you can secure the data of field workers and remote offices – whether they use Windows, Mac, iOS or Android. One agile solution that consolidates backup from all devices centrally makes the solution much more efficient, making it much easier for your business to grow.

Save money – You might assume that because you have more data, you will have to pay much more to protect it. Not with DNS Cloud's backup solution. Our simple solution helps ensure lower investment and greater transparency. In addition, automation can save time and money. Scheduling backups for your business is a traditional way to enjoy greater reliability with less management. Advanced scheduling provides even more functionality and cost savings, such as multiple backup plans for the whole server or just one file. Have a large amount of data? Off-site cloud backup can be an alternative for fast recovery while reducing the need to maintain on-site hardware. For on-site storage, customizable storage options – from disk drives to central storage – are a strategic way to balance recovery speed and protection costs according to your needs. Our unique approach to hybrid cloud architecture means you can store your data wherever and however you want.

Ensure business continuity – If you want to make money, customers must be able to rely on you. That means your computing systems need to run all the time, no matter what. By leveraging multiple innovative technologies, DNS Cloud ensures your systems are protected in an external facility to ensure business continuity, while providing full resilience so no data is lost or becomes inaccessible. For example, Instant Restore lets you start any physical or virtual Windows or Linux system directly from backup storage as a virtual machine – with no need for standby hardware or moving data. Alternatively, you can be up and running on a new computer within minutes with Universal Restore – a technology that overcomes troublesome compatibility issues and lets you restore an entire system to different hardware with just a few clicks.

Stay secure – While backup and recovery used to be enough to keep your data safe, today's threats require a new generation of data protection solutions. Industry-grade encryption is an important start, ensuring your files can be accessed only by you – not even DNS Cloud can access them; only you hold the encryption key. In addition, blockchain-based technology confirms that the content of your files has not changed. Other new threats such as ransomware, which attacks a business every 10 seconds, require an even more innovative approach so your data is protected as it grows. Unlike other technologies that can only protect against known ransomware strains, Active Protection monitors your system in real time, using artificial intelligence and behavioral heuristics to assess whether a process running on your system is malicious. If a threat is detected, our technology stops the process and immediately notifies you so you can take action. Of course, if you trust a third party such as DNS Cloud to store your data, you want to be sure it is under high security. We do that – and much more. All our data centers are built to Tier 4 with new disaster-prevention technologies and 24/7 security. The facilities and the entire solution comply with SOX and ISO 27001.

Stay compliant – Many industries require certain regulations. This became even more critical when the European Union introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect in May 2018. Penalties will be high for any business that does not adequately protect customer data. DNS Cloud helps ensure your customers' personal data is secured according to strict standards, including end-to-end encryption. In addition, cloud customers can choose in which data center their backup is stored. The solution provides international information-security certifications.

5 reasons why fast backup is critical for your business

Fast backup and agile recovery are critical to business survival. In fact, they are among the most sought-after features of data protection (according to a recent ESG report). Several recent studies with customers confirmed that speed is a deciding factor in choosing a new backup provider. At DNS Cloud we are ready for this. Our innovative business backup solution is faster, more cost-effective and easier to use than our competitors. Fast backup and 15-second recovery make it the perfect solution for modern business environments. Still not convinced? Here are five reasons why backup speed matters, followed by five questions you should ask when choosing a new backup provider.

1. More data, less time to protect it –The amount of data in the world keeps growing at an amazing rate. It is estimated that every year we create twice as much data as the previous year, heading toward 180 zettabytes, or 180 trillion gigabytes of new data, in 2025. Despite this data explosion, businesses have less time to protect it. Besides the fact that more data takes longer to back up, system administrators are now busy with many other jobs dealing with their heterogeneous IT environments. They have a limited amount of time to complete all tasks, making backup speed a key factor in choosing the solution.

2. Reduced RPO – If your business generates large amounts of data every day, even incremental or differential backups can take a long time. The longer the time between backups, the larger the recovery point objective (RPO) window – the amount of data lost between backups. Faster backup is the best solution for your business. It lets you run more backup jobs in a given time, bringing RPOs down to an acceptable level. More frequent backups reduce the likelihood of data loss in a disaster.

3. RTO – The ultimate goal of any backup is the ability to restore data quickly with minimal effort. The recovery time objective (RTO) is the target time within which you need to restore data to ensure business continuity. RTO is usually determined by calculating how much downtime the business can sustain before it starts suffering negative consequences from data loss. If downtime is not an option, you need fast backup with fast and multiple data restore options, such as DNS Cloud's solution. It is designed to give users multiple data restore options, regardless of the data type or how it was originally backed up. This includes granular recovery, bare-metal recovery, virtual host restore and any-to-any migration. Data can be protected in less than 15 seconds, on local infrastructure or in the cloud, and even on different hardware.

4. Reduced use of system resources – The backup software, or its agent, is usually installed on the device it protects. Modern software may be very light on system resources, but data compression and encryption can still increase CPU and memory usage – a potential hit. Similarly, if backup data is transferred to a remote location over the network, it can drag on the capacity needed for normal operations. This is why traditional backups are scheduled during off-peak hours when the system is free of other tasks. If your backup software negatively affects processing power, it is time to move on. Consider DNS Cloud's solution. It is very light on system resources and can run in the background all day without affecting your daily operations. In addition, it comes with off-host backup storage options, letting users move resource-intensive tasks – such as data replication, cleanup and validation – to another host, freeing resources even further.

5. Advanced technology – Fast backup is the result of innovative, advanced technology. Just as you expect a new smartphone to handle more than phone calls quickly, innovative backup software from vendors such as Acronis also offers more than just backup. Backup solutions based on a flexible hybrid cloud architecture give you full control over managing your data. This can also indirectly improve the overall speed of data protection, since you can choose where to store and how to restore the protected data. In addition, it comes with Acronis Active Protection, an innovative anti-ransomware technology that detects and stops ransomware attacks and immediately restores affected data, and blockchain-based data notarization through Acronis Notary for easy verification. Together, Acronis Backup 12.5 Advanced simplifies data protection, making it fast, easy and reliable.

Now that we have discussed the importance of fast backup, here are five questions to ask your data protection provider:

1. Can their data protection solution evolve alongside your business, protecting growing amounts of data without putting pressure on your resources?

2. Can you protect all your data, including all workloads in all environments, with a single backup solution?

3. Will your growing data affect recovery time, and can you restore your data to any hardware or even a different environment?

4. Will their solution give you the flexibility to choose where to store the protected data – on the local network or in the cloud?

5. Are there proactive anti-ransomware protections built into their solution to help you protect your data from cyberattacks?

The ease of backup with DNS Cloud's solution

When we hear that something is easy, we often think it means it is childish, has reduced functionality, or required a lot of effort to make easy. Learning a new language, flying a plane or creating a mobile app can be simple tasks, for example – but only for those who spent a long time learning and practicing. For a long time, data protection was in the same category. If you have been in the IT industry for more than ten years, you have probably experienced the nightmare of rebuilding servers and recovering lost data. It was a difficult, time-consuming task even for experienced professionals... and that was when backups were measured in megabytes and businesses could go hours or even days without data. Today things are different. The amounts of data we rely on are growing astronomically, leaving no room for complicated, cumbersome backup solutions. Maybe you can get by with your legacy backup solution for now. But what about next year, when you need to protect twice as much data in the same amount of time? DNS Cloud's team of experts put a lot of thought into simplifying complex data protection tasks for the everyday user. The result is an innovative hybrid configuration and a service bundle anyone can use. DNS Cloud's backup solution is the latest example of powerful technology presented through an easy-to-use interface, and we have five reasons why this matters for your business.

1. Easy installation – It takes only three clicks to install DNS Cloud's backup solutions on your network and then a few more clicks to set up your backup plans. Instead of exposing the user to dozens of setup screens and configuration options, DNS Cloud's software is smart enough to discover the environment and choose the best options automatically (although optional settings are still available for those who prefer to configure things manually). Easy – and in this case, easy actually means advanced and innovative. The software is also easy to use. With just a few clicks you can add devices to your backup, choose storage locations and enable advanced features such as ransomware protection. If you don't have your own storage space, you can open a cloud account with DNS Cloud in a few clicks and store your data there. The interface is user-friendly, so you can even log in remotely from a mobile device to manage your backups. With legacy backup solutions, adding new devices can be difficult, increasing the risk of new devices being left unprotected. With DNS Cloud's three-click backup, setting up new backups is a breeze, freeing up time, increasing productivity and reducing the margin for error.

2. Easy to restore – An easy backup solution also makes restoring lost data a snap. The easier it is to restore, the less time is wasted deciding what to do. Supported by an intuitive interface, DNS Cloud offers near-instant RTOs, allowing data to be restored in less than 15 seconds. After all, business backup is about the ability to restore data quickly to avoid costly downtime. The outdated interface of legacy backup solutions can make data restore a difficult task. And since companies often push their IT team to perform multiple tasks with limited resources, having an easy-to-use solution can be the difference between recovering quickly and going under because the interface was hard to understand.

3. Troubleshooting errors – DNS Cloud takes the idea of easy backup one step further by offering dashboards with customizable widgets. This is especially important when something goes wrong, as these dashboards provide a quick and clear picture of the protected environment. Simply by opening the first page of the web console, IT managers can see what is backed up, how often, how much data they have and how much space is left on their storage devices. Dashboard items are also clickable – just click a graph to access the underlying data. If you see a warning about your target storage device, clicking it takes you to that device so you can free up space or change the storage location. Similarly, if the control center shows a backup error on a server, clicking the item helps you solve the problem: you are taken directly to the root of the issue.

4. Easy reporting – Reporting is a routine task for organizations, but manual backup reports can take many hours in a busy environment. Again, DNS Cloud makes it easy. Reports are automatic and customizable as needed. If you process reports with third-party software, you can drop the backup reports into a specific folder for processing. There is also an option to export and import the report structure (including widget settings and configuration) to a .json file. Many users find this useful when they need to reinstall the management server or copy the report structure to another management server. Simple reports mean IT managers are more likely to use them, which helps prevent errors and unnecessary data loss. As you can see, truly easy backup means you can do more. It enables increased productivity and a reduced risk of data loss, which is important in today's business environment. But don't take our word for it – try DNS Cloud's backup solution today and see how easy it can be to protect your data for the future.

Why agent-based backup is the best option for your business

Many local backup solutions offer comprehensive data protection. A local solution is based on a server that copies organizational data to tapes or disk, or a combination of the two (disk backup for the short term and tape backup for the long term).

This solution has several limitations. If the organization has several sites, the solution must be implemented at each of them, and central management of the backups is complex. If the organization has one site, an off-site backup solution is required – usually tape backup with a policy of taking tapes off-site on a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly basis.

With a tape-based solution, the customer keeps a limited number of copies of the data; usually after a year only one set of tapes is kept for the yearly backup. If the customer wants to restore data from a year and a half ago, there is no point in time for that data, because only the yearly copy was kept on tape.

A local solution requires upgrading hardware and software – storage systems, software and tape libraries – to support the growth in data volume, which in turn grows the backup volume. For these reasons, many organizations are considering backing up their data to the cloud. Agent-based backup is the preferred option because it separates the different servers – each backs up separately to the cloud and does not depend on local hardware. In the cloud, agents can be set to back up in parallel to shorten the backup window, and backup agents are updated automatically.

An agent-based service gives the organization maximum flexibility. It does not depend on the type of operating system, application, database, hosting platform (physical or virtual server) or central storage system. The agent also supports endpoint operating systems – desktops and laptops – in the same management interface.

Using an agent to the cloud copies data outside the organization, so incremental backup must be implemented to reduce the bandwidth required for backup. Data can also be compressed to save cloud storage costs.

Challenges of restoring data in the cloud

Backup solutions must offer customers a variety of data restore options – from a single file, a partition, a physical or virtual server, databases, to individual emails from an internal mail server or an Office 365 email service.

The challenge in backup is fast and correct restore of organizational data. If the customer restores a lot of data, the process is long, and during the restore the customer cannot work on the system and must wait for it to finish. Cloud backup solutions usually include a local copy of the backup at the customer's site in addition to a remote copy in the cloud. The local copy is used for fast restore, but sometimes this copy is unavailable and the customer wants to restore systems quickly. DNS Cloud's backup service provides customers with fast data restore on DNS Cloud's public cloud infrastructure. DNS Cloud's cloud computing infrastructure provides an available restore environment for customers.

DNS Cloud uses INSTANT RESTORE technology in the service. This technology lets customers start servers immediately from the backup data stored in the cloud, without a full restore of the organizational data. Startup takes a short time, with no hardware compatibility issues. The server returns to work as a virtual machine, and changes are written to temporary storage on the virtual infrastructure. It is recommended to run the server this way for only two or three days and then move it from the backup solution to an active cloud server, because the server cannot be backed up while it is running from the backup solution. Startup is of course also possible from a local backup made by the customer, not only from the copy at DNS Cloud. You can back up a physical server and restore it as a virtual machine in DNS Cloud's cloud. The server can then be connected to the organization's network and to a dedicated firewall on DNS Cloud's cloud infrastructure, giving the organization's users access to the computing systems. This capability is relevant when the customer has no working server to restore to (hardware failure of a server at the customer's site).

Another service is UNIVERSAL RESTORE, which lets you recover and boot an operating system on different hardware from the backup. Such hardware usually includes different storage controllers or chipsets that are critical for operating systems to run properly. This service is very useful in the following scenarios: immediate restore of a failed system on different hardware, cloning operating systems to different hardware, converting servers from one physical server to another or from physical to virtual, and even from virtual to physical.

The process is done by booting from recovery media, choosing the server type (32/64-bit), starting the server data restore and choosing what to restore. Drivers for the new server's devices must be provided during the restore. These capabilities are available in the service of DNS Cloud, which provides the most advanced backup on the Israeli market.

Is your data protected in Office 365?

Most customers are sure that moving to Office 365 will give them a built-in, automatic backup solution for email services, as they had before moving email to the cloud. To their surprise, they discover that data deleted from the system, such as email items, folders and attachments, is no longer available in Office 365 after 30 days in the most basic and popular license plan. Since email is critical to the daily operation of any business, and since historical information in mailboxes needs to be accessed regularly, backing up data in the Office 365 environment is essential for the organization.

A unified infrastructure for backing up all organizational data – There are several systems for backing up Office 365, but they are usually dedicated backup systems for the service, separate from the organization's existing backup system. The system administrator then has to manage several separate backup systems. It is recommended to integrate a central backup system that backs up all organizational data, including Office 365.

Ease of implementation – Check whether the system requires installing an agent on one of the organization's servers, or whether it connects directly from the cloud to the backup system's existing management interface. Also check that the installation is quick and simple.

Ease of data restore – Check whether the solution allows easy data restore to the Office 365 environment, whether you can restore to a different location without overwriting the data, and whether you can search the backup for email items.

Technical support – If you have questions about the solution or need help from support, will the provider be available for you? Does it have a local support team, including certified engineers with experience in various backup technologies and Office 365 systems, who can help implement the solution and provide technical support afterwards?

DNS Cloud's backup solution for Office 365 completes DNS Cloud's range of backup solutions and provides a complete solution for backing up all organizational data to the customer's site, with an additional copy of the data in the cloud. The system lets you schedule backups at high frequency and, if needed, restore data from multiple backup copies.

You can search for items in the backup interface by subject, recipient, sender and date range. You can also preview data in the backup system's management interface to make sure you are restoring the right items.

The system lets you restore entire mailboxes, back to the existing mailbox or to a separate mailbox. In addition, you can restore emails including attachments, meetings, tasks and contacts to the original mailbox, or send the items as an email to the user.

Is local backup reliable enough?

One of the most common cloud solutions is backing up organizational data – protecting the data and being able to get the business back to work in a disaster. Data restore scenarios can be human error, hardware or software failure, ransomware or malicious damage. For many customers, this is a service that lets them start using cloud services easily without significant changes to their computing network.

Local backup is usually based on backing up data to tapes. The backup runs at a standard frequency – daily backup kept for a week, weekly backup for a month, monthly backup for a year and yearly backup for seven years. Tape backup is easy to implement, and tapes can be taken outside the customer's site and brought back to the office if data needs to be restored. The advantage of the solution is its low implementation cost. The disadvantage is that the backup is slow, cumbersome to operate and unreliable for data restore. In addition, we don't really have all the data on tapes for seven years – the yearly backup runs once a year and includes a copy of the data as of that moment; after a year we have no daily/weekly/monthly backup points. If after a year we discover we need data deleted a year and a half ago, we won't have it in the backup.

A recent survey on restoring data from tapes found that more than 30% of customers had problems restoring data from their local backup system. Microsoft found in a survey of its customers that more than 42% of data restore processes in the past year failed. Another survey found that more than 50% of customers could not successfully restore data from tapes.

It is important to know that with tape backup we rely on magnetic media that must be stored in suitable conditions and is sensitive to humidity and temperature. It is hard to verify that the tapes are intact – the only way is to restore data, which is a long and cumbersome process requiring free temporary storage and spare computing power to run the systems to check them, so in practice customers almost never do this check.

Another local backup solution is disk backup, which has gained popularity among customers in recent years. Here the backup is made to a local disk or storage system, which keeps the backup data at the customer's site. The advantage is that it is faster and more reliable than tape backup, easier to operate and keeps more backup points over time. The disadvantage is that the storage system becomes our only source of data for restores, and a failure in it can lead to complete data loss (all backups and all their versions). In addition, we are exposed to a complete site outage that prevents us from restoring data.

Public cloud services can provide significant value. This is a managed backup service that protects all organizational data. The recommended configuration is a local backup plus an additional copy of the backup on cloud infrastructure. The local backup is made to disk and includes all the advantages of this type of backup (ease of operation, speed and reliability), and an additional backup source in the cloud is used to restore data if the local copy is unavailable. The backup can also be used for disaster recovery – fast startup of virtual servers from backup files in the cloud.

The cloud copy is stored on central storage infrastructure with high performance and very high availability. The provider can manage the backups for the customer if needed, or the customer can manage them themselves. The data is stored in a protected, secure facility. The backup is encrypted, the provider has no access to the backup data, and the customer can access the backup from anywhere at any time and restore data.

How do you get started with a cloud backup solution?

Implementing DNS Cloud's backup solution is quick and simple. All you need is to choose a backup plan according to the backup volume your business needs. Backup plans start from 100GB. After choosing a plan, we recommend calling us to talk with a backup expert who will design the solution for you. The design covers questions such as: Is local backup needed? What data should be backed up to the cloud? How often should backups run? How long should backups be kept? Is a disaster recovery solution needed, or backup only?

After the design, we activate the backup for you remotely (no site visit required) – all the customer needs is an internet connection and an administrator password for the servers/workstations. The initial backup starts immediately and the system begins backing up your business data to the cloud. After a few days the initial backup is complete, and from then on only changes are backed up – at this point your data is protected in the cloud. The DNS Cloud team manages the backup for you, including the initial backup setup, periodic monitoring of backup health, handling backup failures and restoring data when needed.

What data should be backed up to the cloud?

When implementing the solution, the customer needs to decide what data to back up to the cloud. These are the possible options:

Backing up critical data only – This backup contains only the customer's critical data and not all systems (operating systems and applications are not included). It usually contains the customer's file services (corporate file server) and the databases of core applications (such as the ERP/CRM databases). This type of backup lets the customer restore critical data from anywhere at any time. Its advantage is the low volume of data backed up to the cloud, so the monthly payment is also lower than a full system backup. The disadvantage is that operating systems or applications on the servers cannot be restored, and if a server crashes, the operating system and applications must be reinstalled before the data can be restored.

Backing up all organizational data – This type of backup includes all of the customer's data: beyond critical data such as file services and the databases of operational systems, the servers' operating systems and applications are also backed up. This backup is larger than a critical-data-only backup, but it lets the customer restore operating systems and applications and even a full server after a crash, which is not possible when backing up data only. Another advantage of full system backup is the option to start servers quickly from the backup file. DNS Cloud's backup infrastructure lets customers start servers quickly – at the customer's site or on cloud infrastructure (a disaster recovery solution) – within a short time and without waiting for a full data restore. If the customer has a 1TB server and restoring the data could take several hours, instead the server can be started from the backup within a few minutes without a full data restore.

Combining local backup and cloud backups – Customers who want to enjoy the advantages of full system backup can combine local backup with an additional backup in the cloud. DNS Cloud's local backup is not limited in volume and is priced per agent in the system, so you can easily and cheaply back up all data locally. The solution can be combined with a double backup of critical data only to the cloud, to save backup volume on the cloud infrastructure.

Extending the solution to disaster recovery – DNS Cloud's backup services also let customers perform disaster recovery based on the backup data at DNS Cloud. If servers are fully backed up to the cloud, they can be started within a short time without restoring data. We provide customers with virtual infrastructure, a firewall and public IP addresses for the servers, supplying all the components the customer needs in an emergency.

The differences between cloud data backup and cloud storage

What is cloud storage?

Cloud storage, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud and Microsoft OneDrive, is a great way to share files easily. The main purpose of cloud storage is to store files online so they are accessible and you can work from any device anywhere. However, there is no guarantee, no monitoring and reporting, no support, and if a server goes down in one of their data centers you may never see those files again. All these services have a web interface for uploading files and also offer an automatic process to upload or sync files with your computer. Only files and folders can be stored. Cloud storage is a great way to share documents, but it is not the place to back up your business-critical applications and documents.

What is cloud backup for businesses?

Cloud backup is cloud-based remote backup for businesses that gives you the ability to automatically back up files, applications, virtual machines or servers and store them safely for disaster recovery. Cloud backup is insurance for your data and business continuity. Cloud backup solutions are usually built around a local client application that ideally runs several times a day on an automatic background schedule. The application collects, compresses, encrypts and transfers data to the service provider's servers. To reduce bandwidth consumption and the time needed to transfer files, the provider performs incremental backups after the initial full backup. The primary data resides in its original location, while a secondary copy is stored safely in the cloud for data restore. The cloud backup solution stores all data using a custom retention policy, so you can fix corrupted files by restoring previous versions. Professional backup solutions include special plugins for backing up data from third-party applications (such as MS Outlook, Exchange, SQL). Clear reporting on backup success makes it easy to verify that all files are safe.

Comparing the solutions:

• Goals – the main goal of cloud storage is to store data and let users access files from anywhere at any time and easily share documents inside and outside the organization. The goal of cloud data backup is to back up organizational data (workstations or servers) in order to be prepared for a disaster such as a ransomware attack (which can easily encrypt cloud storage too, since files are usually synced automatically from computers to cloud storage).
• Cloud storage is used to store remote files, while backup provides data protection and disaster recovery when needed.
• Cloud storage is exposed to ransomware attacks and file encryption, while a backup in the cloud is not exposed to data encryption because it is disconnected from the local network.
• Cloud storage includes one copy of the data with local file sync. A cloud backup service includes a secondary copy disconnected from the primary copy.
• Cloud storage lets you store files only, while backup includes the operating system and databases and allows restore to different hardware, building a disaster recovery solution for servers, and built-in ransomware protection.

Backup vs. archive: why it is important to know the difference

What is a backup?

A backup is a copy of data created in order to restore that data if it is damaged. The original data is not deleted after a backup is made. Examples of backups include a nightly backup of all files on a laptop or desktop, or all the photos on your phone being copied to the cloud in case you lose the device. We also back up file servers (unstructured data) and databases (structured data). A backup may focus on the data, as in a database, on the server's operating system, or on both together with a full backup of virtual or physical machines.

The purpose of a backup is always the same: to restore data if something happens to it. For example, a RAID array may suffer the failure of several disks and all its data needs to be restored. Someone may accidentally or maliciously delete one or more virtual servers and they need to be restored. One day you may realize that every file in your organization has been encrypted by ransomware. Without a good backup system, your choice would be to pay the ransom. With a good backup system, you can find the source of the virus, stop it, and then restore all your data – without paying the hacker.

What is an archive?

An archive is a copy of data created for reference purposes. Although not required, the source is often deleted after archiving. While the purpose of a backup is to restore something to how it was (usually) yesterday, an archive can serve multiple purposes. The most common is to help you find some data from long ago. It could be a single file that was an important item, such as a contract signed with a customer several years ago. It could be a set of related data, such as all the structural drawings of a building, or all the drawings of one of your products.

Another set of related data could be all the emails and/or files that can prove a claim. A customer may send an e-discovery request for all emails to and from them that contain the words contract, delay or a certain name. Someone else may be trying to prove a hostile work environment and want to see all emails from a certain set of managers that contain a specific list of words.

An archive helps you achieve all these goals. You may have an archive of every order, email or contract your company ever had. You can keep online contracts, including web orders, but you keep them all in the archive, which should be indexed so you can retrieve orders and contracts by their content. You may also have an archive of every email sent or received by your company. An email archive can purge from the server emails that have been archived, are larger than a certain size, and/or have not been accessed for more than a certain number of days. This helps keep the email system small, saves its computing and storage resources and makes backup easier. That can even be the purpose of the archive, if you are not legally required to keep all emails.

Restore vs. retrieve

Even if the purpose of the archive is to save space on central storage, it must be able to retrieve rather than just restore if it is called an archive. Backup systems restore; archives retrieve. When you restore something, it is usually a single file, server or database. When you retrieve something, it is usually a collection of related data, because it is not stored on the same server or even in the same format. A restore is also made to a single point in time, such as restoring a database to how it looked yesterday. Retrieval uses a time range, such as all emails for the last three years. Restoring requires you to know a lot about where the file or data was when it was backed up; otherwise you cannot find it. You need to know the server name, the database or directory where the data was, the name of the file or database table you want back, and the date it was last seen. Others don't have such information; they just know they need all the files or records matching a set of parameters: give me all files or emails created in the last three years that contain a certain phrase or were written by a certain person.

Why it matters

Many people try to use their backup system as an archive system, meaning they keep their backups for many years – or even forever. The first time you get a real retrieval request, you will find how hard it is to retrieve anything. This will make the retrieval take much, much longer – maybe months instead of minutes – and cost much more. Don't use your backups as archives. If you need long-term storage, look into a dedicated archive system. It will have a cost, but it will be worth it in the long run.

How to deal with a ransomware attack

Here is the scenario – you are working on your computer and notice it is running slower. Or you cannot access documents or media files that were previously available. You may get error messages from Windows telling you a file is an "unknown file type" or that "the operating system cannot open this file."

Another possibility is that you are completely locked out of your system. If you are in the office, you may look around and see others experiencing the same problem. Some are already locked out, and others are just wondering what is going on, just like you. Then you see a message confirming your fears – your business is infected with ransomware.

The number of ransomware attacks on businesses tripled in the past year; the attack rate rose from one attack every two minutes in the first quarter of the year to one every 40 seconds in the second quarter. The rate at which new ransomware variants appeared in Q2 2018 compared with Q1 2018 rose significantly, and ransomware damages were expected to exceed $5 billion that year.

How does ransomware work?

Ransomware usually spreads via spam or phishing emails, but also through websites or file downloads; the goal is to infect an endpoint and penetrate the network. Ransomware locks all files using strong encryption. Finally, the malware demands a ransom (usually paid in bitcoins) to decrypt the files and fully restore the affected information systems

The typical stages of a ransomware attack are:

• Infection – after being delivered to the system via an email attachment, phishing email, infected application or another method, the ransomware installs itself on the endpoint and on every network device it can access.
• Encryption key – the ransomware contacts the command-and-control server operated by the cybercriminals behind the attack to generate the encryption keys used to encrypt the files on the local system.
• Encryption – the ransomware starts encrypting all the files it can find on local workstations/servers on the network.
• Once encryption is done, the ransomware displays extortion instructions for paying the ransom, threatening to destroy the data if payment is not made.
• Decryption – organizations can pay the ransom and hope the attacker decrypts the affected files (which in many cases does not happen), or they can try to recover by removing infected files and systems from the network and restoring data from backups.

How to recover systems from a ransomware attack

You have already been attacked by ransomware – what should you do now? Prevent the spread by separating all infected computers from each other, from shared storage and from the network – speed of detection is critical, because the attack moves fast, often before the IT team can stop the virus from spreading across networks and encrypting vital data. The first thing to do when a computer is suspected of being infected is to isolate it from other computers and storage devices. Disconnect it from the network (both wired and Wi-Fi) and from all external storage devices. The virus looks for connections to other computers and you want to prevent that. You also don't want the ransomware communicating across the network with its command center on the internet. Note that more than one computer may be infected. Treat all networked computers with suspicion and take measures to make sure all systems are clean.

From messages, evidence on the computer and detection tools, try to determine what type of malware you are dealing with – ransomware often identifies itself when it demands payment. Many websites help you identify the virus. Identification will help you understand what type of virus you have, how it spreads on the network, which file types it encrypts and what your removal options are.

You have several ways to deal with the infection. Decide which approach is best for you – your options are to pay the ransom, remove the malware or reinstall your systems. Paying the ransom is generally considered a bad idea: it encourages more attacks, and in many cases decrypting the files fails. A recent survey found that more than three quarters of respondents said their organization is unlikely to pay the ransom to recover their data (77%). Only a small minority said they were willing to pay some ransom (3% of companies had already set up a Bitcoin account in preparation). Even if you decide to pay, it is quite possible you will not get access to your data back. That leaves two other options: removing the malware and selectively restoring your system, or starting over (a clean install). Use a safe backup to restore the computers/servers on a new platform – if you copy your business backup to the cloud, you have a copy of the data without the encryption, and you should get copies from the cloud backup of all your important documents, media and files up to the time of infection. Be sure to determine the infection date, bearing in mind that an infection can lie dormant in your system for a while before it is activated and makes significant changes. Identifying and learning about the specific malware that attacked your systems will help you understand how it works and what your best strategy for restoring your systems is. Choose a backup or backups made before the initial infection date. DNS Cloud's backup lets you go back and specify the point from which you want to restore files.

Assess how the infection happened and what you can do to prevent such an attack in the future – DNS Cloud's backup service lets you actively protect computers and servers from ransomware by installing a backup agent that periodically backs up organizational data to the cloud and also includes built-in ransomware protection that stops the attack and automatically restores files on servers and workstations.

How to prevent the next attack

A ransomware attack can be devastating for a business. Important, irreplaceable files can mean the loss of hundreds of work hours. With good planning you can keep ransomware from affecting your systems. Security experts recommend several precautions to prevent a ransomware attack:

• Use antivirus and anti-malware software or other security policies to block viruses from running.
• Make frequent and comprehensive backups of all important files. Professionals recommend backup (74% in a recent survey) as the most effective response to a successful ransomware attack.
• Keep offline backups of data stored in locations that cannot be accessed from any potentially infected computer, such as cloud backup solutions for businesses, which prevent the ransomware from reaching the backup data.
• Install the latest security updates issued by the vendors of your operating system and applications. Remember that regular updates can close known vulnerabilities in operating systems, browsers and browser plugins.
• Consider deploying security software to protect endpoints, email servers and network systems from infection.
• Train users in information security, such as being careful when opening email attachments and accessing suspicious links on the internet.
• Segment your networks to keep critical computers isolated and prevent malware from spreading in an attack. Remove unnecessary network permissions.
• Remove administrator rights from users who don't need them. Give users the lowest permissions they need to do their job.
• Limit write permissions on file servers as much as possible.

Clearly, the best way to deal with ransomware attacks is to avoid them in the first place. Beyond that, it is very important to make sure important data is backed up outside the organization to a cloud solution that ensures data loss after an attack will be minimal or zero.

Database Backup to the Cloud

The flexible architecture built on the Structured Query Language (SQL) used in MySQL, together with its licensing, makes it the ideal database for applications such as ERP software.

The database is the most critical element of most applications, because that is where data is stored and managed. In addition, without a working database, most applications that rely on it are useless. So if you have business or server applications that rely on and connect to MySQL, keeping good backups of the database files is critical. A good MySQL backup can save your systems in the event of data loss.

DNS Cloud's backup system lets you protect the entire infrastructure and follow best practices by backing up SQL Server clusters from passive nodes by default, or by choosing the active/specific node to perform the backup. The system helps reduce RTOs and allows simple restore by backing up all Microsoft SQL servers, including operating systems, databases, settings and configuration.

The system helps minimize costly downtime and simplifies recovery by restoring entire systems from a reliable, proven backup disk, without reinstalling the operating system, applications or reconfiguring settings. If it is a virtual server running the database, you can achieve an RTO of 15 seconds or less by starting a Windows or Linux backup directly as a VMware VM; no data restore is required.

Backups secured with strong encryption in transit and at rest are stored in two locations – at the customer's site and in DNS Cloud's cloud. You can also protect SQL servers from ransomware attacks with Acronis Active Protection, the only backup technology that detects and prevents unauthorized encryption of files, databases and backups.

With the system you can easily protect all your local and remote SQL servers from a central location with a friendly web management console. You can reduce downtime risks with automatic truncation of your transaction logs and make sure your database server never runs out of local disk storage.

Mail Server Backup to the Cloud

Email changed the business world forever. 25 years ago there was no email. Today your company's communication relies mainly on email, especially if you have a remote workforce and multiple offices. Most companies use email to communicate with customers, suppliers, partners – almost everyone. Mail servers are critical for any organization – it is safe to say that if your email system experiences many failures, your company or business will suffer greatly. The business may even stop operating completely. If you are among the 75% of companies using Microsoft Exchange servers for email, protecting them will be one of the top priorities for you and your IT team. In addition, laws and regulations may require you to protect and retain your emails, and there may be heavy fines if messages are lost.

You need a data protection solution that can back up the entire Microsoft Exchange server, including the operating system, configuration and data, and restore databases, mailboxes or individual emails quickly and easily, anytime and anywhere. The number 1 backup solution for Microsoft Exchange is DNS Cloud's backup solution. It can back up the entire server in physical and virtual environments, as well as Exchange servers in Microsoft Azure or Amazon EC2 cloud accounts.

All you need to do is add the Exchange server to the touch-friendly Acronis web console, install the agent and schedule backups of your application as you would with any other Windows or Linux machine. Acronis takes care of log file truncation and data consistency in the process. Backups can be stored on any available storage – local disks, shared folders, NAS and the secure storage of DNS Cloud's cloud environment.

You can restore entire servers, Exchange databases, mailboxes or individual emails. You can even browse, search and preview content directly in an easy-to-use, user-friendly web browser. This means that in less than a minute you can restore a critical email if your CEO deleted it by mistake.

This is another example of how the fastest backup solution in the industry gives you peace of mind – try it yourself. Check out DNS Cloud's cloud data backup solution today and experience the best Exchange backup.

Have you tested your cloud backups lately?

Everyone needs to be backed up, right? If you want to get your data back after data loss, what you need to worry about is the restore. Can you restore your data? A backup that cannot restore data is worthless. Don't assume anything – test your backups at least twice a year. Why might you be unable to restore your backup?

You are not backing up the right files – most backup programs and services give you a backup report so you know whether the backup succeeded. But that is only part of the story. You know something was probably backed up, but you are not sure what. Users and IT staff sometimes store data in unusual places. Some cloud providers back up only user folders. Applications can also move their data folder after an upgrade, and the backup program has no way of knowing. DNS Cloud's backup service lets you back up the entire machine for workstations and servers – a backup of all data on workstations and servers – so you usually do not suffer from this problem.

You cannot log in to your backups – the cloud has security protections to keep hackers from getting your data. Many backup programs let you put a password on your backup and encrypt the data. DNS Cloud's backup system includes two-factor authentication to make sure only you can access your backups.

You don't have the skills to perform the restore – with online services you can usually just download the software and start the restore. No matter what method you use to back up your data, you need to know how to restore it. Some products are especially complex and do not include an option to restore to different hardware. DNS Cloud's backup service makes fast restore easy; you can practice the restore with the run-from-backup service, which requires no extra space and does not shut down the main system during the restore. So you can practice restoring.

You can get caught with a faulty backup – just as we test our smoke alarm twice a year, we also need to remember to test our backups. It takes a bit more time and effort than pressing a button, but not much. Before you perform a test restore, make a final backup. DNS Cloud's backup service makes fast restore easy; you can practice the restore with the run-from-backup service, which requires no extra space and does not shut down the main system. So you can practice restoring without overwriting one of the backups or accidentally replacing data during the restore.

Your test is restoring critical data – you know which file or database it is: something you cannot live without, something you would pay a data recovery service thousands of dollars to get back, such as the contracts folder or your financial management software. Whatever it is, you need to know how to restore it properly before disaster strikes. Every company is different, but the goal is to be able to find the important data file in your backup. Once you know where it is, restore the file to the desktop. I always recommend the desktop because it does not risk overwriting data on the production system.

Test restoring a few random files – it is recommended to choose three files at random, no matter which. I usually just scroll down the screen and pick files at the bottom or top. Try to choose files from different folders/directories and not the same files you used in steps 1 or 2, since you already know those are fine. The only rule is not to choose the same files every time – after all, they need to be random. If you do this twice a year, you can make sure these backups are not just files stored somewhere; they are files you can trust and rely on to be there when disaster strikes.

Test your backup at least twice a year. At DNS Cloud we can provide a solution that lets you test data restore in just a few minutes, without any risk of changing data on existing systems.