Hosted Data Disaster Protection Flexiion is based in the UK and delivers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions, making the advantages of the Cloud and IaaS more accessible to mid-size, professional organisations. Our Ready-to-Go IaaS Building Blocks enable our customers to build cost effective and scalable IT solutions more easily. This frees them from the routine of owning and running IT hardware, so that they can concentrate on realising their IT and business ambitions. Central to this is our service to protect customers data against loss and corruption, almost wherever it resides within their network. Is this a cloud service? The phrase cloud is used in so many different ways. Our service is provided by utilising our own infrastructure within Tier 3 data centres in the UK to provide a private and secure service delivered over the Internet. Is my data safe and private? All customer data is encrypted automatically before it departs, and remains encrypted at all times until it is restored back to the equipment they have chosen. The encryption password is known only to the customer. Data is sent over a secure, encrypted connection. All filenames are scrambled to provide an added layer of privacy to the data, and data belonging to each customer is segregated from all other customers. What are the implications under the Data Protection Act? There are no implications of the Data Protection Act for customers or Flexiion as a result of using our Data Disaster Protection service. The Data Protection Act regulates data that can be used to identify a living individual. Within our Data Disaster Protection service, all customer data, whether Personal Data or not, is encrypted by the customer before it leaves their equipment and with encryption keys to which we have no access. Therefore, the data to which we have access is not Personal Data as defined by the Act, and consequently, Flexiion has no responsibilities or obligations under the Data Protection Act, in respect of our Data Disaster Protection service Where is the data stored? Our standard service uses world class data centres in Maidenhead and elsewhere in the UK. Other geographical locations are available by arrangement with us. Additionally, the service can be configured to store locally, so one interface will manage on-site as well as off-site storage. Do the services require any special network settings or configuration? No, the service uses secure tunnelling that will make use of any Internet connection. Customers can set up the service on machines that are inside or outside the organisation s firewall. This means, for example, that the service will run on laptops that are used in the office, on the road, and at home, as well as more traditional, static network estate. 2015 Flexiion 1 FAQ: Data Disaster Protection
Laptops at home or on the road Office based equipment Flexiion Tier3 Data Centres Servers and virtual servers INTERNET Racks and data rooms Equipment at multiple locations Local storage Browser based monitoring & management 2015 Flexiion 2 FAQ: Data Disaster Protection
What s involved in set-up? A small application is installed on each machine to be protected, and it takes typically ten to fifteen minutes to set this up. It requires no specialist skills to set up the service unless the customer s network design is unusually complex. Otherwise, it is similar in nature to setting the preferences in MS Word. What types of data sources can be protected? Our service can be used on any combination of Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as for virtual machines and servers. There are easy-to-use plug-ins for file systems, databases, Exchange and Outlook, Sharepoint, and Active Directory, and back-up types include: o Files and folders, including stored, open and deleted files o Databases of different types: MS SQL Server, MySQL, PostgresSQL and Oracle, Sharepoint; o Email systems: POP, Exchange Server, MS Outlook o Virtual machines: VMWare and Hyper-V o Disk Image & Bare Metal backup How much control is available? Simple settings on the application for each machine give customers the ability to specify precisely what is to be backed-up, when and how often, and what history is retained. It can store the history of changes to protected data by past versions or by date. Several different back-up tasks can be defined on a single machine to suit different types of data if need be. Different back-up tasks can be specified for different types of data and other requirements, machineby-machine and multiple tasks per machine: o Flexiion s service backs-up at bit level o Backup jobs can be: continuous or scheduled, timed backup periods, incremental or archive, rollback by version or by date, with synthetic back-ups o One-time back-ups can be used to archive data, for example: closed projects, historical information such as year-end accounts What about the restore? o Incremental backups are aggregated on restore so that they arrive back on the customer s equipment as a single item, restored with a single action. 2015 Flexiion 3 FAQ: Data Disaster Protection
What service monitoring is available? Customers have secure access to a management portal that enables activity and status to be monitored, and management of the back-up tasks that have been scheduled. In addition, various email alerts can be configured to reduce the management workload still further. Can the system be managed centrally? The management portal has access most of the key management actions on each machine. A few actions requiring access via the on-site interface. Clients can be password protected to prevent local access and unmanaged adjustment. Are large amounts of network capacity required? After the initial back-up, our service up-loads changes only. This dramatically reduces the data load, and everything is also compressed before transmission. Depending on the nature of the data, compression rates can be as great as 30% or more. The service has a facility to throttle the use of network capacity by time of day if required. What if the network connection is not the best? The system transmits changed data only, which are then compressed, and this reduces significantly the bandwidth that s required. Unlike a real-time connection, for example for video streaming or remote desktop, a back-up is not a real-time service, and can usually run over a period of time such as at overnight or at the weekend. How much storage capacity is needed? Three things govern the amount of storage required: o The amount of data to be protected, o What past versions need to be retained, o The compression that can be achieved with the type of data. We would normally recommend having around 35% more space than is needed immediately, so that data growth and past versions can be stored without difficulty. What about the initial volume of data, and restoring everything quickly? We can arrange a physical up-load or down-load of data using a physical drive if this is needed. What s involved in extending the service? Additional storage can be added very easily. Flexiion runs monitoring systems to ensure that we have a clear view of data growth trends for each customer, and we aim to send alerts well in advance of any required change of service. New machines and data sources can be added to the service very simply and this can be done at any time by adding new licences as required. Can the service be used for long term storage archives as well as backup? The service can be used for long-term archives as well as for backing up rolling historical records of active data. 2015 Flexiion 4 FAQ: Data Disaster Protection
How are SQL databases backed up? Is there an agent that sits on the client to convert the data? Typically our software is installed on the server and backs up the database using the plugin, which creates a dump file which is then backed up. There s no conversion, it uses native SQL functionality. Some customers prefer to use in-built database utilities to create a dump file that is then backed up. Can the service protect more than application and user data? Configuration settings can be backed up so that servers and other network components can be reinstated more quickly, and whole-machine backup is possible to enable with bare metal restores. What happens at the end of service? How would the data be returned? The data can be restored by the customer to their local device or media just before end of service. This ensures that the customer is always exclusively in control of the data. Once this has been done the data is then irreversibly deleted from Flexiion s data storage in line with industry best practice. About Flexiion Flexiion is a technology services company based in England that concentrates on creating and delivering secure IaaS solutions for professional and business organisations. We see this as a market that is particularly poorly served with high quality, flexible solutions that are straightforward, cost effective and ready to go. Our primary focus is on hosted services that are highly secure and have enterprise grade functionality, and can be delivered at low cost without compromising quality. We deliver these services directly to customers and through our channel partners. http://flexiion.com +44 (0)203 642 5109 sales@flexiion.com 2015 Flexiion 5 FAQ: Data Disaster Protection