One of the most common questions that our sales team gets is “how secure is my data in the cloud”? Of course   we have our pitch ready to go that describes in detail how data is encrypted at the source (client machine) with the user password and transferred through an SSL layer to a luxurious SAS70 data center facility and so on and on regarding physical data security.  But we found that sometimes when we talk to a user that is a business owner its hard for them to understand the technical terms and how their business data is actually protected.

 In order to transfer the message better we decided recently to try the visual demonstration of data protection and to show what encrypted documents/data really look like.

I pulled a file from our company’s local backup and if you click here  you can see  what our accounting record (or whatever the data is) looked like after the encryption process

encrypted_file_sample

 As a wise man said once: “better you see something once than hear about it a hundred times”.

 Enjoy the day

Next week the company is starting its annual practice of conducting test restores for our clients.  The annual test is part of our service to our clients and is free of charge.

 Test restores are the only way to prove that the entire process of data backup protection (delta pro processing, encryption, compression, WAN/LAN SSL transfer, storing, incremental daily updating and vice versa for restoring) has been 100% successful.

 We start to contact our customers in July and usually by new year’s eve our account managers has completed testing for our entire client base.

 Here is the sample email we send to clients:

 Subject: Your account with us

 Dear client.  As part of our service, we contact our clients from time to time to discuss any changes in the system that would require updating.  Also, at the same time we conduct test restores to verify the quality of the data protection.  We would like to schedule a time to remote access your machine to accomplish this.  It can be anytime, even after work hours if that is more convenient for you. 

 Please reply by e-mail and let us know when is a convenient time is for you.

 Best Regards,

 PCIC Support Team

 E-mail: support@pcicbackup.com
__________________________________
Visit our website: www.pcicBackup.com

 If You Fix the Problem Before it Exists What’s the Problem?
Ask our representative how we can help protect your valuable business data.

Very often we get new clients that come to us from using another remote backup/cloud backup service. After presenting our unique service preposition we ask -who recommended us? And also why do you want to leave your current provider?  We know that usually clients will not switch to a new provider unless there is a special reason.

Well the number one answer that we get is failing to restore some or all of the data (the second reason is that restores took too long)  And unfortunately all of them found out after the data was lost and then it was too late.  We have heard a stories of people who lost QuickBooks files with their entire accounting records or a person that couldn’t restore his server and is struggling to stay in business.  In some cases we know that some of the companies refund the money but no amount of a refund can help restore data that took years of hard work to create.

In all areas of life it is important to learn from other people’s experience.  The phrase “you get what you pay for” is important to remember when you buy any low cost product/service, especially when the asset you are looking to protect is truly invaluable.

Some of the data backup solutions/providers on the market provide a 20% backup/restore solution. They are made to cover only certain scenarios of data loss! How you know? Do some research, run some disaster recovery scenarios and restore masses of different types of data from different types of applications at different times, and ask lot’s of “what if” questions.  What if I need to restore an important email from 2 years ago?  What if I need to restore 200 GB right away? And how fast can you restore it?  Can you restore a deleted document from 3 years ago?  How can I make sure 100% that I will be able to retrieve my SQL data base or any backup data successfully?  Remember, that the purpose of backup is all about the restore!

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