Backups in a blink

Technology Concepts' TC Backup is an Internet-enabled service that takes advantage of the growing popularity of always-on Internet connections such as ADSL, iBurst and 3G to create a secure, remote and highly protected offsite backup of computer information. With this solution, backups take care of themselves.

Wayne de Nobrega, TC managing director, notes that email, business documents and contact lists built up over the years are still resident on individual machines - and often, these are mobile machines: "Despite the introduction of CD-and DVD-writers, hundreds and thousands of small business owners or even private users have no backup of their data. They know the value of the information even before they lose it - but burning copies is a hassle and all too often it just never happens.

For the individual user, TC Backup requires a once-off identification of the important data that must be protected, which is either copied from the machine on a 'carry-in' basis, or over the Internet, depending on the volume.

Once this initial copy has been made, only that data which has been changed is synchronised automatically over the Internet at any low-volume time, such as after-hours or whenever suits the user.

"Since the solution uses intelligent compression technology, the consumption of bandwidth is very low - useful in the local capped-bandwidth connectivity market. Furthermore, your information is encrypted and only you have access to retrieve it."

For larger organisations with many users and a server infrastructure, data can either be backed up directly to Technology Concepts' secure, mirrored sites, or it can be gathered to a central server from user machines.

"Using this system, restoring data is really simple - it can be done from anywhere on the planet, as long as a machine and an Internet connection are available, and is literally
achieved at the touch of a button."

Individual users can protect up to 2GB of data for R95 per month, while the server-based solution starts at R595 for 5GB.