Backup
We Found Nemo!
Feb 10th
We have no idea when it started to be cool to name winter storms, but apparently the theme that’s trending is Cartoonish! With winter storm “Nemo” hitting many major states and cities in the US such as NYC, Massachusetts, New Jersey and many more it’s only logical to be adequately prepared for the worst. Regardless of where you are, one must always be ready so as to remain safe during such unfortunate events.
IT preparations are fast becoming the number one concern soon after employee safety that is of course.
So as to help you in the field we’re best at, we shall provide you with the 3 most imperative steps you ought to live by:
1) Always keep your data protected
Needless for much explanation and long speeches on how important it is to backup; everyone already knows Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” So why risk it?
2) Get in the habit of making backup copies, and do that frequently.
It does not only take a major tsunami to damage data; loss or damage happens all the time and yet such catastrophic conditions make it all the worse. Physical buildings are harshly affected by environmental damage and yet we must not fail to consider our digital information that can also be instantly lost. So, how are you prepared for such catastrophes?
3) Choose the right backup solution.
While this might be considered as negotiable or variable according to one’s personal preference, we do not think data loss is indeed negotiable. Whatever the circumstances, a good backup never fails its customers. So, unlike other solutions and services that will employ their own private servers, Zoolz is a real cloud backup solution where your data does not reside on one real physical location, but rather is deduplicated while in an encrypted state over a multitude of different locations.
So not Nemo, Shrek or Ratatouille will have you worried about your data if it’s on Zoolz! Download it today and stay protected and safe.
Why you need to backup your Smartphone?
Jul 16th
Having so much data on one’s phone would make sense to have a strategic backup plan in case of a worst case scenario, yet how many of us actually do regular backup, or better yet consider losing our data to be of paramount concern? Big companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, as well as mobile carriers such as Verizon and T-Mobile, have been smart enough to have already achieved great leaps in the data storage realm. Yet, both the companies and carriers seem to have a keen interest in centralizing the user experience to keep it trapped within the service provider or OEM device manufacturer. Logically, there isn’t any OEM (original equipment manufacturer) or carrier that would want their customer to stop using the product or service, so it makes perfect sense that they would exploit any means to keep the customer within the service. Manufacturer giants such as Apple and Microsoft have device specific platforms that they only backup to, such as iCloud or Live.com, what this ultimately means is that in the case you would want to switch platforms from iOS to Android; your data would most likely be unavailable, or very difficult to sync. Google is smarter in the sense of taking a more convenient approach, at least if you’ve activated one of their many products such as Gmail and Picasa that would salvage your data. But, have you ever considered, after restoring your data, who really owns it? Ah, yes, it’s a very important question, and I’m sure you would want to keep your data Your Own. So how would you? Having a device-autonomous backup service is imperative in today’s fast paced lifestyle. Product cycles that have an average of 6 months or less, OS platforms that alter almost yearly, the user ought to have the flexibility of switching carriers and manufactures as frequently as products do, and most importantly, the user ought to have the luxury of moving their data from one device to the next. Third-party backup App such as G Cloud comes in handy in the gap left open by the retention driven OEMs and Vendors through providing cloud-based data storage and restoration to any user on any current device, oblivious of the manufacturer or carrier. G Cloud takes it a step further by backing up SMS, call logs, Pictures, Videos, Contacts, Music and documents. Do not wait till you get disappointed and find out you cannot move your beloved data and basically digital life from your current phone to the next best phone ever just because your current manufacturer or carrier do not provide the service. Use the device –autonomous backup to make the transition as smooth as the summer wind!
Be part of the smart crowd and download G Cloud today; it’s free!
Tip of the day: Schedule your backup!
Apr 11th
April is here, and Genie Timeline is better than ever!
We know many of you have been eagerly waiting for the new updates. We did not spare a single second to answer your requests, and have been working tirelessly to significantly enhance your backup process.
Did you know Genie Timeline 2012 can now schedule backups?
Yes, finally, long gone are the days when you were stuck in an automatic predetermined time interval! Genie Timeline now allows you to schedule the backup to occur to your preferred time and date. Whether it is 3am or 11pm, you can choose when and what is backed up at your comfort. You can make it recurring to run at a specific hour on a specific day; enabling this feature is as easy as clicking on the “Tools” menu from the dashboard then “Advanced Settings” and finally click the second option on the left “ Backup Schedule” and you’re good to go. If you were comfortable with the time interval, you can still do that by choosing a specific run whenever it suits you. Alternatively, you can customize your schedule when to start and when to end, or just select a starting time. Another beneficial option is choosing what your PC/laptop does after Genie completes its magic; you can choose to hibernate/ sleep/ shut down or simply do nothing!
Finally, we leave you with a case study of one of our users who sent us this letter just recently.
The new feature’s contribution has been invaluable to my daily life.
As a writer, my creative drive strikes each day at midnight, once everyone has fallen into their comfortable retreats, that’s when I can finally find the serenity I so long for. If you’re a writer, I’m confident you can relate!
The clock strikes 12:00 and consequently the ideas come rushing as a flowing river, my only option would be to yield myself and be driven to wherever this uncontrollable force takes me, and as they say “strike the iron while it’s hot”; hence I must thank the Lord for not having a writer’s block and begin my endeavour.It may take me hours to finish an article, since I always set out to perfect every writing pursuit.So, it would usually be 3 or 4 am before I put the last finishing touches and head to my beloved bed. This is when it’s essential for a backup to run, to save my work so that I won’t lose my nerves (or my job) if my laptop crashes for some reason or another.
Previously, we could not set a certain time interval for a backup; it either ran every hour/ 3 hours /8 hours or so, and it may have even crammed up our space or worse, missed out on an important change in a file.
Now, since my writing scheme is the same day to day, I can set Genie Timeline to run after I have pulled together all the bits and pieces of my targeted article, and I can rest assured that my hard work will not vanish into thin air.
Looking for a simple, elegant backup solution?
Genie Timeline 2012 is a new version of the number one continuous data protection program Timeline 2.1. It offers the first metro style user interface; enhanced performance, and added features. Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter for the latest news.
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Zoolz: Connect, Protect, Stream and Share Your Digital Life
Oct 24th
What is Zoolz?
Zoolz is a new service that will in moments, have your documents, photos, music, and videos from your laptops, desktops, network drives, media servers, and external drives on the cloud. Therefore, you and your connections’ data are protected from hardware failures, virus attacks, human errors, and natural disasters.
For the first time ever, listen to encrypted music, watch videos, and view a timeline of photo memories directly from iPhone, iPad, Andriod, or Windows mobile devices. Store favorite music, videos and photos to the mobile device for accessing without an internet connection. Zoolz also allows you to share all your documents, presentations, photos, music, and videos, no matter how large, between your devices, family, friends, or teammates directly from your computer, facebook account or mobile device with a click.
To be the first to experience Zoolz go to: www.Zoolz.com
Server Platforms Now Supported by Timeline Cloud
Jul 12th
Cloud backup solutions are beginning to substitute conventional backup methods in every aspect. With increased reliability and guaranteed uptime by major cloud storage providers such as Amazon S3, it has become more convenient and more feasible to backup your business to the cloud. Servers in organizations were usually backed up regularly using tapes, with time this practice was dropped and replaced with a more modern approach such as using networked attached storage or external hard drives. However, whether you are using tapes or external media you are still vulnerable to data loss due to hardware failure, theft and catastrophes.This is where Cloud backups comes in.
Timeline Cloud is now offering support for servers and external storage with special pricing plans that cover all server types and storage space. Whatever server platform you are using, visit http://www.timelinecloud.com/Pricing to find out how you can start your server backup today.
Cloud Backup Has Become 5x Faster
Jun 23rd
When backing up to the cloud, speed is an important factor especially when backing up businesses. A backup program should implement technologies that improves it performance without using up all of a computer’s resources. This has become a challenge for us here at Genie9, to produce a cloud backup solution that can simplify the backup of anywhere from 1 to 1000s of machines and out perform the leading cloud backup programs in the market now, and this is what we achieved. In this benchmark we compare the performance of Timeline Cloud to the performance of other backup software in the market. Timeline Cloud on average is 5 times faster than any of the cloud backup providers in the market today, including Mozy, Carbonite and Crashplan. You can check the full comparison by following this link:
How to Choose a Cloud Backup Solution for Businesses
May 31st
There are MANY cloud backup solutions on the market today. It has become very difficult to know which is the right one for your needs; everyone is claiming they are the best, the easiest, the fastest, etc. After 10 years of experience in the field and hundreds of thousands of hours spent on global analytical research I have put together a list of the most important factors to consider before choosing a solution:
- In any business time is money. A key feature in a backup solution is simplicity when it comes to deployment and installation; zero hassle, zero employee intervention, zero headache. The installation should be seamless and take up little-to-no time to complete. Everything should be handled on a central, remote location on the cloud without the need to install anything on individual machines or on a complex local server.
- Configuration should be done completely in the cloud throughout the entire company; there should’nt be a need to manually configure each machine with regards to the backup settings and what data will be backed up. A solution that requires manually setting up a backup policy/job configuration should not even be a consideration.
- Why stress over using separate software to handle images of your hard disk stored on local locations when you can find a cloud backup solution that handles all of that for you? Using a cloud backup solution that supports complete DR will remove the hassle of worrying about local storage, servers, purchasing hard disks, etc.
For example: If you are away on a business trip and your Windows somehow gets corrupted you can easily repair your entire system from the cloud. With today’s high-speed internet it will only take a couple of hours to get back up and running with all of your data, applications and settings intact.
*Make sure that DR comes with “true” deduplication technology. If the Disaster Recovery is not deduped it will not be useful (Deduplication refers to backing up only one instance of a particular file throughout the world and using pointers to acknowledge who can access this file. This can be done on common files, such as Windows files to save both time and space) - A true cloud solution is mandatory! Most cloud backup solutions use proprietary storage, backing up to their own personal servers. A true cloud solution means that your data will be stored in well known, first class storage facilities that duplicate your data throughout their global network of locations. Using a proprietary storage location has a great deal of risk since they are not as secure or reliable. In 2009 Carbonite lost the data of their customers due to proprietary storage failures. True cloud locations like Amazon, Nirvanix, etc. also have a risk but their risk is much smaller and backed with a guarantee to help protect you from such instances.
- Block Level Backup, otherwise known as Delta Backup, is crucial. Block Level Backup breaks up larger files, that are changed often, into smaller pieces and only backs up pieces that have been modified. For example: Outlook stores all emails in one large .PST file, without block level backup your Cloud solution would backup this large file (around 1 GB) each time you receive an email which will tie up your business’ bandwidth and is not very practical. Block level will allow you to only back up the modified sections of the file saving both time and space.
- Security is obviously extremely important to all businesses. A backup solution is handling important data and time and effort should be made to make sure that it is secure. The key things to look out for is that the backup will be encrypted using AES-256 or higher, your backup is encrypted at the source and that you are given the ability to authorize personal encryption for key people in the company, such as the CEO.
- One of the major benefits with leveraging the cloud is the ability to access your data at all times. Your backup solution should provide the same convenience. You should be able to access your backed up data through a web interface and/or your mobile device. By access this means the ability to restore, view, share and maybe even edit.
- Speed!!! Backing up an entire computer, let alone a company, can be extremely time consuming. There are different technologies that help speed up the process; make sure the solution you choose uses these technologies. Most cloud solutions on the market are extremely slow and give little to no options when it comes to throttling the bandwidth. A backup solution that is slow negates all other fancy features that it may contain.
- Strong management consoles are often overlooked. A powerful web console can make or break a backup solution. The management section should allow you to completely control your entire company’s backup; You should be able to view reports and monitor activity, edit, add and suspend users, create/edit backup policies, control security, etc. all directly from the cloud. Many backup solutions on the market claim to have such management functionality, but at the end of the day all it does is handle the billing, which is important but not the only important thing.
- There is no point in backing up if you cannot restore. The backup solution you choose should come with a variety of restore options. Backup has come a long way from single file restore, emailing compressed files, or requesting a CD with the restored data to be shipped which can take a lot of time. In this fast paced day and age, time is of the essence, so restoring a file should be done in seconds. There should be several restore options, such as file restore, folder restore, drag and drop restore, restoring deleted files, restore from an older version, and complete Disaster Recovery restore. These options should also be available in remote locations such as from a web interface or a mobile device.
- Data is critical and losing your data can be detrimental! Make sure the backup solution you choose gives you the ability to restore your entire machine easily and quickly incase anything were to happen to your data. You should have the option to restore data to its original location and even restore Windows files if needed.
- Cost!!! As a business owner the last thing you need to worry about is another bill. Payment should be straightforward, one flat fee and without surprise charges.
- Features and bells and whistles are great but if it affects your computer’s performance it is going to slow productivity. You should not be able to feel the impact of a backup solution and it should never interrupt your work. To have different performance modes, such as battery mode or presentation mode, are key. For example: If you are presenting a PowerPoint to an important customer you should not have to feel a hang because a backup has started. The solution should intelligently notice that you are running a presentation and slow down the backup so that it goes unnoticed.
- Finally, as a business, you need something that is simple to setup, worry free, and requires little to no learning curve. A set-it-and-forget-it type of solution is ideal.
We here at Genie9 have spent years working on creating a cloud backup solution to change the way business-wide backup is done. We are proud to say that Timeline Cloud addresses all of the above requirements. Our main goal was to create a real cloud backup solution for Windows that goes above and beyond just sending a copy of your data to the cloud and referring to it as a backup. You can now try Timeline Cloud for FREE.
Thank you
-Muayyad Shehadeh
CEO
Genie9
www.Timelinecloud.com
Introducing Timeline Cloud! Real Cloud Backup Solution for Your Business and Family
May 31st
Genie9 proudly introduces our latest in backup technology Timeline Cloud.
Timeline Cloud is a real cloud backup and disaster recovery solution that combines powerful state of the art technology with the world’s most trusted and reliable service provider, Amazon S3.
Designed to have the option to be deployed to anywhere from 1 user to 1000s of users in 5 minutes through its powerful management console, Timeline Cloud is the ultimate solution for businesses looking for a feature rich, easy to manage backup solution that needs no hardware or software installation.
With flat rate billing and no surprise charges, you can backup your company no matter what the size. Flexible subscription plans allow you to choose an affordable plan for your company that will ensure 100% protection of your data.
Visit www.Timelinecloud.com/home for a free trial
A Sneak Peek into Timeline Cloud
Apr 24th
Sneak Peek into Timeline Cloud
Timeline Cloud– Revolutionary backup software: No installation needed, no hardware necessary, no network setup, low IT resources, always ready and 100% cloud based. Coming Soon: May, 2011
Mobility
Timeline Cloud Application for iPhone/iPad/iPod, Android and Windows Smart phones:
. Search and access backed up files
. View and download encrypted files, text files, PDF files, office files, images, etc…
. View and listen to backed up music and videos within the application
. Share backed up files through email
. View all backed up machines on a single account
. Monitor your backup and stay up to date with your backup’s status and health
. View a backup breakdown chart showing details regarding your backed up files/folders
Like us on Facebook for an early trial, more sneak peeks and special offers
Surviving Disasters Large or Small
Mar 31st
Developing a disaster recovery plan require more than just planning for a worst-case scenario. Disasters come in all sizes, so plans must be flexible. When developing a DR plan, think about the small problems as well as the large ones.
For example, a “disaster” might be the deletion of a critical file or folder. Do you know what to do if such a file is accidentally deleted or corrupted? Sometime just restoring it from the Windows Recycle Bin isn’t enough. If you do not have a backup copy of that file that can be accessed quickly and easily, your disaster recovery plan is incomplete.
Another part of developing a disaster recovery plan is ensuring that everyone, from the janitor to the CEO, knows what to do in case of an emergency. If your office has uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) protecting critical servers, staff needs to know this. It does no good for a company to protect a specific server for say, an extra 30 minutes with a UPS, if no one knows that the server needs special care, such as a controlled shut-down, before power goes off.
Knowing where your data is backed up and how you can access it after a disaster strikes also is critical. Is your data being backed up locally, to the cloud, or both? Do the employees know how to access their data if they need to work remotely? Today’s cloud computing services and managed service providers make it possible for employees to work anywhere, any time. Having continuous backups to these offsite backup facilities makes business continuity a reality for companies of all sizes.
Finally, remember to test your plan on a regular basis. Perhaps you will run a full-scale test by turning off all network access in a department or office to see how your employees react. Perhaps it will be pulling the plug on a single network device to see how employees cope. Ensuring that a company’s staff knows how to survive a disaster in advance will make surviving a real disaster that much easier.
- Not all disasters include the total annihilation of your primary data center. When preparing a disaster recovery plan, consider situations of partial data loss. For example, if your Internet connection is down for a short term but all other services are functional, what is your plan?
- Discover and map current network devices. What is the criticality of these devices? How will downtime on those devices impact the business?
- Do you have adequate network documentation for the DR network? When a disaster occurs, everyone will be in a panic. Having proper documentation can be the difference between the success and failure of a disaster recovery.
- How often is your DR plan tested? It’s almost certainly not frequent enough.
- Has proper network resiliency been taken into account for the production network? Think about dual power supplies, redundant network paths and redundant circuits. These network resiliencies may prevent you from having to declare a disaster in the first place.
- Implement policies whereby the DR plan is updated when any new network equipment is installed or network software changes are made. This will keep your DR plan up to date. Change management has a DR impact.
- Make sure you patch and upgrade DR equipment, just as you do any other network system or subsystem.
Don’t forget about network security issues when you have a disaster. No end user will put down “anti-virus software” as a critical need. You don’t want to get your DR network up after 24 hours of work only to have it brought down by a virus. You must think about security because users won’t.