1Backup vs the Market

AZURE Backup

Microsoft offers a cloud backup service that includes a management console and agents to install on servers.

• It doesn't have specific module for Databases or Virtual Machines backup.
• It has a monthly fee for the agents installed on servers, which are defined as 'Protected Instances' from a contractual standpoint.
• It has additional costs if transferring data above the 100.000 object/month threshold.
• Basic Technical Support (the free one) doesn't include phone calls and doesn't guarantee a low reply time to the emails sent through the Web portal.
• A 252,99€ monthly subscription is required to obtain support via phone; this subscription includes 3 phone calls each month.
• Developer support is available at 24,46 €/month which is essentially the same support as the free one but with a reply time guaranteed within 8 hours; phone support is not included.

AMAZON S3

It's not a backup service technically, but rather a storage space in the Cloud. The cost of service has to be calculated according to several variables.

• The price is calculated on a storage space basis (calculated on the GB) with the addition of variable costs for upload, list and download data volumes.
• It doesn't have a fixed price for each instance/agent.
• Basic support is free and includes 4 checks on the proper behaviour of the service each month; the request can be sent exclusively through their forum and no reply times at all are guaranteed.
• With an additional 49$/month it's possible to send check request through email with a reply within 12 hours; the constraint of 4 checks/month is still present.
• If phone support is needed, the cost is 100$/month with a business account, which guarantees a reply within 1 hour.
• A management console is not available, just a limited interface for the creation of the space. Uploading and downloading files is possible with third-party applications or with your own developed with the API that Amazon has made available.
• Retention is not included, retrieving data in different points in time is made thanks to file versioning.
• Amazon offers an archiving service called GLACIER which can be used along with S3. This service offers the opportunity of storing data in the long-term with a price calculated on a GB basis and retrieving file for free provided the volume of the retrieved files is inferior to 5% of the total amount af data archived; after this limit there is a price for each GB restored. Prices on data movement is still to be taken into account.

ARUBA

It's a Cloud backup system that provides a management console and agents to install on servers. The system is very similar to 1Backup but it supports only the Microsoft and Linux platforms.

• It doesn't work with Apple systems and it doesn't have DB, VM and Exchange modules.
• The Bare Metal backup feature is exclusively for Windows computers.
• Support is included in the price stated on the website, however it's not defined what is includes and whether there are some kind of limitations.
• A "Customised Services" section do exists with some example of these customizations, and among these there's dedicated support."
• All the services must be defined case per case with a price to be defined with Aruba commercial department, therefore there is no evidence of them on the website.

We have compiled your you a table* below that sums up what has been said.

*analysis performed in May 2015

What you can deduce from the previous table is that the online backup services offered by Azure and Amazon, even if they have lower monthly fees on instances and GBs, inflate their prices with additional costs for whichever other function needed for the execution of a proper backup. The service that gets closer to the one offered by 1Backup is Aruba's which, however, lacks a lot of features and is quite limited.

So, you might be asking yourself: "yeah, but do I really need these additional modules of the 1Backup service? My clients don't need them!"

Remember that nobody works with a single thing... If you think of the environments of your clients, you'll recall files, databases, applications, operative systems and the list goes on. You need a multiplayer backup solution or, in other words, a solution that works simultaneously with several levels, from the single file (may it be open) to the whole computer.

Also remember that the vast majority of people use several operative systems; Windows will be the strength point of the enterprise world but everybody have at least a second, if not even a third, backup operative system that you will have to backup in turn.

Remember that the IT world is not 100% virtualized . Surely virtualization made giant leaps in the last years and will continue to do, but at the moment physical servers are the weak point of most of your clients - which, inevitably, entails the backup of both physical and virtual servers.

What does it mean? Every environment has traits that differ a lot and that means that your online backup strategy won't be homogeneous. From a Disaster Recovery standpoint, the logic consequence is that your service must be flexible and covering a broad range so that is can ba adapted to every situation.

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