Most small businesses put their lives on the line every night and don't even realize it. With businesses depending more and more on the data stored in their computer, proper backups are becoming much more critical. Remote backups accomplish several essential steps that are often overlooked or done improperly by other backup software - especially non-automated tape backup systems.

Remote backup works basically like regular tape backups, with one important difference. Instead of sending backups to a tape or zip drive attached to the computer, remote backup works by sending data over broadband connections or regular telephone lines to another computer safely off-site. It does this (usually) at night while the business is closed and nobody is using the computer. It's completely automatic.

Using both a  backup system and a remote backup system offers the best of both worlds. Critical files, like billing, customer contact files and databases can be kept on the remote backup system. The tape system can be used to create a full backup of the entire file system -- including program files -- once or twice a month. The remote backup system can provide a quick and easy way to retrieve critical files and databases without the hassle of searching through tapes. Also, if you don't regularly restore your tape backups, how do you know they are not corrupt. You would be surprised how many times one restores a tape only to find the information missing, or worst case, corrupt.

Very. You -- and you alone -- have access to your data files because DPS encrypts your data prior to transmission to our offsite backup server. Military-grade encryption technology and a user-defined password (encryption key) ensure that nobody, including employees of DPS, can access your data. Compare this to the total lack of security on most tape and zip drive systems. Encryption means your files are locked up before they are sent out on the Internet.

None! The actual backup process itself is fully automated. Once you have configured the time, frequency and list of files to be backed up into the client software, the actual backup will take place automatically on schedule. All you have to do is keep your PC turned on when you leave the office in the evening.