SBackup: ITCloud.ca’s Flagship Backup Solution
The ‘S’ in SBackup stands for ‘supervised’, a reference to ITCloud.ca’s unique, 100% supervised backup solution. It also represents ‘scrutiny’, ‘support’, ‘service’, and ‘security’: areas that make the Quebec company a national leader in cloud backup.
“SBackup has been our flagship backup solution for the past 13 years,” says David Latulippe, Vice President of Sales and Business Development for ITCloud.ca. “It was the first backup solution we built for business continuity and it continues to boast a 100% success rate.”
From encryption of data to storage in two offsite facilities in Canada, SBackup provides businesses with peace of mind. A critical line of defense against dangers ranging from crypto routers and mining software to malware and ransomware, it’s a turnkey solution for organizations of all sizes.
“When we say 100% supervised, that’s exactly what we mean,” says Latulippe. “It takes five minutes for partners to install SBackup, during which time our professional technical staff are available to provide as much support as necessary. Once the initial backup is complete, our partners and their customers have nothing else to do. If a problem occurs with the previous day’s backup, ITCloud.ca’s professional technicians will solve it and contact subscribers by phone. Even then, there’s no need for partners and customers to act. Whether it takes two minutes or two hours to rectify a problem, ITCloud.ca does it all at no additional cost.”
As an added attraction, SBackup comes with a default 60-day data retention, even for deleted files. This ensures the restoration of data from any point in time during that period, with even longer retention times available by request. Imagine working on the same excel file every day. With SBackup, there will be an easily accessible backup for each day, with 60 different versions available during the retention period.
For customers who want to perform local backup for files and automate the process for regular data protection, ITCloud.ca will perform a local backup at no additional cost. Integrating this hybrid backup in all online backup solutions gives users the ability to backup or restore several gigabytes of data within minutes.
“Make no mistake,” says Latulippe. “Adding a local backup is not about additional security. When you have off-site backup, your data is already secure. The only reason to opt for local backup, as well, is to speed up recovery time. Businesses that would not want to wait until the following morning to receive large recovered files on a drive are the prime candidates for local backup.”
According to Latulippe, having a copy of data that’s stored off-site is the most important part of any backup plan. It’s also imperative, he says, to make sure that the backup you have is doing what you expect. Some backup solutions backup infrequently and miss data. Some companies are overcommitted and give preference to large clients.
ITCloud.ca was founded on a commitment to small and medium-sized businesses, which comprise 98 per cent of the Canadian economy and have the least tolerance for compromised data. It is also built on a foundation of service.
“Service is the reason we are the backup provider of choice for notaries in Quebec and healthcare providers across the country,” says Latulippe. “It’s also the reason almost all of our partners switched their Microsoft business to us in the fall of 2017 when we became one of only seven Microsoft authorized 2-Tier distributors for indirect CSPs in Canada. We have no long-term contracts, so subscribers can cancel at any time, but less than 1% opt out, and when they do, it’s almost always because the business has ceased to exist. We do what we can to make sure that doesn’t happen because of a data disaster.”
The other ‘S’ words in SBackup
Scrutiny: ITCloud.ca’s specialized technicians supervise the backup of all operating systems (Microsoft, Linux, Mac), some databases, and some virtual machines. Automatic mechanisms combine with daily supervision and verification to help technicians identify problems quickly – often before the subscriber notices – and rectify them immediately. As an example, when a regular backup takes only a few minutes, anything considerably longer will signal the possibility of malware. A technician will contact the customer to ensure the increased backup is authentic, but even if data is compromised, there is no worry for the customer. ITCloud.ca can easily restore files to the way they appeared on the day prior to attack.
Support: ITCloud.ca’s technicians are always available to answer questions about cloud backup and other services. For organizations and individuals with limited Internet connections, technicians will send a free backup disk of encrypted data on the morning of the day following a request. This is of special importance to subscribers with poor bandwidth, who may not want to wait several days to recover large quantities of data from the ITCloud.ca servers.
Service: ITCloud.ca’s five-star service begins at subscription with initial backups of large files on an external hard disk. Following a request for the partial or complete recovery of data through the Canadian cloud, technicians will walk subscribers through the process for free. Background backup is performed automatically according to a schedule, with no user intervention required. As another benefit to the customer, ITCloud.ca features special services to make sure laptops don’t escape regular backup. A technician will work with users to come up with an acceptable schedule for alerting them when backups on laptops are missed.
Security: ITCloud.ca stands at the forefront of the IT scene in terms of security. One of the few backup providers to encrypt data on the customer’s site, it gives customers an optional encryption key (password) and suggests this information be stored at a bank in a safety deposit box. Recovery requires the encryption key, which for added security, is known only to the subscriber. Even ITCloud.ca technicians have no access. Facilities are structured on the strictest security policies to promote the quick recovery of data and ensure the complete confidentiality of backup. Files benefit from triple protection: local 256-bit AES encryption, secure transfer (SSL Tunnel), and backup on two separate data centres located in Canada.