Intronis Features

Computers are the default storage medium for most businesses and virtually all home users. Because portable media is quickly becoming an outdated and expensive method for safeguarding important data it is essential to secure critical business assets and personal information with an easy-to-use, automated, cloud backup service. Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery is a powerful, yet simple to use solution. It comes equipped with encryption backup tools previously available only to Fortune 500 companies, but with an interface designed to be use by anyone in any size organization. This proven technology is user-friendly, reliable, ultra-secure and cost-effective. In this white paper you will learn about the many features of this solution and how it can help protect your important data.

Ease-of-Use

You already know how crucial it is to back up your data, but did you know that cloud backup is also effortless? Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery aims to make your life easier by providing several user-friendly features including simple installation, automatic backup, off-site storage, scalability and 24/7 file restoration.

Simple Installation

Forget installing drives and changing tapes! Those methods are labor-intensive and can take hours or even days to complete depending upon the size of the business. With Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery, setting up the solution involves the simple process of signing up online and installing the software on the computer or server. Within minutes, you are backing up files automatically on a schedule of your choice. After the initial backup, subsequent backups take mere minutes to complete because only new or modified files are uploaded.

Automatic Backup

With Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery, data backups are completely automatic and you can also manually initiate a backup at any time. Once the software is installed, you will create a backup set. The backup set is the list of files that you want to backup along with the schedule of when you want the backups to occur. You do not have to select each and every file that you wish to backup because the software includes wizards that make it effortless to choose the files for your backup set.

You have two options for selecting files. You can choose files according to the folders that they reside in or by their file types. You would choose to select files by folder if, for example, you wanted to backup every file in My Documents. You would simply select the My Documents folder from a Windows Explorer-like view of your hard drive. Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery allows you to select multiple folders, to exclude certain folders and to choose individual files to backup.

When selecting files by type, it provides a list of commonly used application programs to choose from. For example, you could setup a backup set that backed up all of the Microsoft Word and Excel data files on your hard drive, by simply clicking on two boxes (Word and Excel). Every time a backup occurs, the cloud backup software will automatically find all of your Word and Excel documents. To offer you even more power for managing your data backup sets, you have the option of including or excluding specific folders or even excluding specific types of files.

Once you finish selecting what to backup, the cloud backup software can calculate how much data you have chosen.

Setting up your secure online data backup service schedule is also very easy. Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery gives you the option of setting a different start time for each day of the week. You also can choose not to run backups on certain days. Or, you may want to keep the default schedule, which is to backup each night Monday through Friday.

In addition to being able to edit or change a data backup set, it also allows you to set up multiple backup sets. Multiple backup sets are useful, for example, if you want to backup the same files more than once a day or backup certain files daily and other files weekly.

Off-Site Storage

With Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery, all backed up data is automatically transmitted to two off-site data centers via a secure Internet channel. If you are currently storing backups on portable media, such as tapes or disks, at your home or business, this online method would prevent the loss of data in the event of a natural or man-made disaster such as fire or theft. If you do bring portable media backups off-site, the Intronis solution eliminates the hassle of having to physically transport backup media to a facility.

Scalability

Have you had to catalog endless CDs or change tapes in the middle of a backup when space runs out? Now you will never need to worry about purchasing more hardware to support your personal or business data growth. With Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery, you can never run out of storage space. We make it possible for your online storage account to grow with your needs.

File Restoration 24/7

Let's face it - you could have the most powerful and most secure backup method around, but it is useless if you can't easily recover your files when you need them. That is why we have made restoring files simple and reliable. In fact, you can start restoring your files in seconds with just a few clicks of your mouse.

Restore files when you want, as often as you want. You have the ability to retrieve individual files, revisions of files, entire folders or backup sets. Or you can recover all of your data files in the event you experience a complete system failure or data loss.

To restore individual items, you can log into Intronis Cloud Backup and Recovery, enter the encryption key and choose the files, folders or revisions you would like to retrieve by clicking on the file name. The data will then be downloaded to your computer, decrypted, and then restored to the original location or another specified location on the system.

In the event of a complete system failure, a full data recovery can be initiated in just minutes. The recovery procedure can be performed on any Windows based computer - not just the computer where the data was originally backed up. You can simply download and reinstall the software, enter the username and password, and then enter the encryption key. Once the software installation is complete, the file catalog can be accessed (the list of all of the files backed up) which will allow the user full control to restore their data.

To restore certain data, the user can log into the software, enter the encryption key the user simply chooses the files, folders or revisions that he or she wants to retrieve by clicking on the file name. The data will then be downloaded to the user's computer, decrypted, and then restored to their original location or another specified location on the user's system. A password is required to restore any files, thus, preventing unauthorized restores, as per the HIPAA Security Rule.

In the event of a complete system failure, a full recovery of the user's backed up data can be initiated in just minutes. The recovery procedure can be performed on any Windows based computer - not just the computer where the data was originally backed up. The user can simply download and reinstall the software, enter his or her username and password, and then enter the encryption key. Once the software installation is complete, the file catalog can be accessed (the list of all of the files backed up) which will allow the user full control to restore their data.

Security

Intronis Cloud Backup and Recovery offers several features that provide maximum security when backing up and archiving data. Files are first packaged to ensure that bandwidth is minimized during transmission. The data is then encrypted (transformed from from plain text into nonsensical cipher text) using a unique 256 bit encryption key that you choose to ensure that files cannot be accessed by others. For added security, each encrypted file is sent over the Internet via a secure channel, and then stored in two redundant Level 4, SAS 70 certified, secure data centers, located hundreds of miles apart from each other.

Encryption

Intronis Cloud Backup and Recovery is a secure online data backup which encrypts each file using 256-bit AES encryption technology. When you first install and configure the software, you will choose a 48 character string that will then be converted into a 256 bit encryption key. Only you will have access to this encryption key. It will never be transmitted over the Internet and it is never stored on our servers. This means that only you can access your cloud backup files. Each file that you backup is encrypted using this key and remains encrypted until you restore it and it returns to your computer. How strong is 256-bit AES encryption? Well, let's put it this way. In June 2003, 256-AES was approved by the United State's National Security Agency (NSA) for use encrypting the U.S. government's documents classified "TOP SECRET."

Transmission

In addition, the software communicates with the Intronis servers using SSL (Secure Socket Layers) technology. This is the same encryption technology used by Internet browsers when a user enters a secured site such as an online bank. As a result, the cloud backup of data is encrypted twice. It is encrypted at all times using the 256-bit AES encryption, and it is encrypted again while it's being sent over the Internet.

Storage

Your data is stored (in encrypted form) in two secure, SAS 70 certified, online data backup centers, located hundreds of miles apart from each other. Each data center has 24/7 monitoring and advanced security measures such as biometric controlled access as well as backup generators and redundant connections to the Internet.

Advanced Technical Features

Intronis has spent a great deal of time and research to bring our customers advanced features that provide optimum functionality for backing up and restoring data. These features include Exchange and SQL plugins, multiple file revisions, logs and reports, and multiple computer support.

Exchange and SQL Plugins

Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery gives you the power to backup your Microsoft Exchange Exchange 2000, Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 databases as well as Microsoft SQL Server databases. With Exchange, you can perform both full and incremental backups and with SQL, you can run full and differential backups. Plus, you can customize your backup schedule.

Microsoft Exchange and SQL plugins are free with any Business pricing plan, and are the perfect backup solution for companies with 200MB, or even 20GB databases.

Microsoft Exchange Plugin

The Intronis Microsoft Exchange plugin is the perfect tool for performing live, secure Exchange backups. It takes minutes to install and configure the Exchange plugin, and once configured, backups will run automatically. You have the power to schedule full and incremental backups throughout any interval of the day, week, or month. The Exchange plugin runs seamlessly in the background as a service, never interrupting email flow. Moreover, the Exchange plugin provides the flexibility to perform individual mailbox and even message-level backups. With this new backup method, retrieving one lost or deleted email is no longer a hassle. The restore process could not be simpler: select the item you wish to retrieve and start the restore.

Microsoft SQL Server Plugin

With the Intronis SQL Server Plugin, your server will never experience any downtime during a backup. The plugin runs seamlessly in the background as a service, never interrupting or shutting down the SQL databases. It takes minutes to configure the SQL plugin and once completed, backups will run automatically.

Setting up the plugin is effortless: simply download, select the databases you wish to backup, schedule times to run your full and differential backups, and then set the retention level. You can have a backup running in just moments. Restoring SQL data is just as easy as setting up the backup - select the item you wish to retrieve and start the restore.

Multiple Revisions

With Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery, you can store an unlimited number of versions of the same file (by default, it stores the last 10 versions of each file). So, if you have certain files or databases that you update everyday or every week, you can always go back to a previous version if you need to. Go back to yesterday. Go back to last year. Plus, you never again have to worry about accidentally deleting the information in a file or overwriting a file by mistake.

Of course, you probably won't want to keep unlimited versions of all of your files because this would use up a lot of storage space. That is why Intronis offers a powerful revision rule wizard that lets you manage how old versions of files are stored. You can set the number of revisions for each file, folder, program or wildcard. So now you can keep an unlimited number of copies of your contact database, while only keeping a few copies of your Outlook PST file.

Logs and Reports

How do you know your backups actually worked? The Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery logs and reports show you what was backed up and when. With detailed statistics and information about each file that is backed up or restored, you never have to wonder if your backups really worked. Did a specific file get backed up? Just check the log.

View Information Online

Let's say you are traveling and want to check to make sure that your backups are occurring. You can log in to your account from this website and view details about your recent backups as well as your storage usage.

Receive email notifications

If you want even more assurance that your backups are functioning, you have the option of receiving automatic email notifications following every successful backup. You can turn this option on and off whenever you want from either the software or by managing your account on this website.

Multiple Computer Support

With Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery, you can backup a single computer or server, multiple computers, mobile users or even multiple offices, all under one main account. Any of the Intronis Business Security Plans allow you to backup multiple computers.

The software also lets you back up files from mapped drives. So, if you have multiple servers that are mapped onto one server, you can backup data from these additional servers without having to add additional accounts. This also means you can backup files from computers running Linux or Mac by mapping their drives onto the PC that is running the software.

Why Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery?

With a plethora of different backup options available today, it can be difficult to decipher which one will work best for your home or business. Portable media backup has become too expensive, labor-intensive and overall, outdated. It is no wonder why cloud backup has become the most sought after form of protecting data. Intronis Cloud Backup + Recovery uses proven technology that has gained major recognition for its security, reliability, and usability. The features detailed in this white paper are just some of the reasons this solution can benefit you and your important data. Our cloud backup and recovery solution is affordable and a practical solution for any user. Additionally, we provide world-class customer support 24/7. Sign up for a free 14 day trial.