Why Perform Backups

Regularly backing up your data is the only defense a business has against catastrophes. Proper backup policy is the only way to defend against problems such as

Data damage by a virus or electronic break-in
Computer theft
Hardware failure due to natural causes, such as earthquake or fire
A disgruntled employee performing malicious but subtle changes to data
Human error - erasing your client's database by mistake

Backup Mechanism Requirements

In order to defend against all of the above, a backup policy MUST be:

Regular - take place at known intervals
Reliable - must never fail to take place due to lack of attention
Redundant - one cannot have a single tape gone missing compromise the entire backup.
Geographically dispersed - Having reliable three copies of your data won't help if the same fire that took your servers also took the backup tapes
Historical - By saving more than just the last data snapshot made, problems that take some time to surface, such as problem #4 above, can still be recovered from.
Secure - The data most vulnerable to damage if lost is also the data most precious to the organization. The backup media must be kept as secure as the data it backs up

The insurance companies have already understood this. Anyone trying to buy data recovery insurance is faced with a demand to have a backup mechanism that satisfies the above requirements

Standard Backup Mechanism Problems

Performing reliable backups based on the above criteria is almost guaranteed to fail. Human nature is not up to performing the same operations reliably over time. Most companies buy a backup tape, and then forget to perform the backup, forget to take the tapes to an off site location, forget to bring them back, or forget to verify the tapes to make sure the data was indeed saved to them.

These failures lead to a situation where, when the catastrophe strikes, the data is not backed up. Many companies don't recover from data loss, and simply go out of business

Lingnu's Solution

Lingnu removes the single problematic element from the reliable backups formula - the human factor. Lingnu's solution is totally automatic, and includes both backup and verification. The client needs only specify once what files they want backed up, and what historical versions to keep. Everything else is performed daily by an automatic procedure, with timely warnings if anything goes wrong.

The data being backed up is encrypted on the client's machine prior to any other processing. A single key, for which Lingnu has no access, unlocks the encryption. This key can be held at a safe at a bank, or anywhere else, but should be held off the client's site to keep geographical separation.

After being encrypted, the data is sent over the Internet to a Lingnu owned server residing at a major Israeli ISP. The server, in turn, is backed up to a secondary server at Lingnu's offices. Backup tapes of this server are routinely stored in a safe at a bank.

Lingnu's solution can thus sustain three faults without any data loss. Each link in the data storage chain is guaranteed by a different entity (ISP, Lingnu's offices and the bank's safe), thus reducing the chances of simultaneous failure, without bumping the cost outside the reach of the small business.

For pricing and further info, please contact