Bandwidth Efficient Internet Backup using Rsync

Easily achieve fully automated, secure, set-and-forget offsite backups using the proven and popular Rsync protocol. Rsync backups are perfect as an extra layer of data protection in addition to backing up locally for Disaster Recovery.

Having a primary backup of your data to a local storage device, such as a USB hard drive or tape drive, is great but if you think about all the disasters that can happen at your office, such as fires, floods, theft or hardware failures, it becomes apparent that you can't rely on just one technology for the protection of your data.

Combined with BackupAssist’s easy to configure interface, powerful email reporting and VSS support, BackupAssist allows you to take advantage of the world’s most widely deployed in-file delta remote backup protocol in an easy-to-use Windows based application.

BackupAssist for Rsync also offers the added advantages of AES-256 encryption for military-grade security, automatic data compression and it's fully 'cloud' ready. You can backup to any Rsync cloud provider you choose, including Amazon S3 Rsync, or RSync.net. (Or easily set up your own Rsync Server for self-hosted backups.)

Cost-Effective

Easy to set up your destination

BackupAssist for Rsync is a cost-effecive Internet backup solution, saving you money in a number of ways:

• Utilizes existing Internet connections.
• BackupAssist for Rsync lets you choose where to backup your data to ensure you access the most inexpensive option:
  • Internally hosted at a different branch office: complete control over your data and no hosting fees.
  • Externally hosted by your IT consultant: your trusted IT consultant hosts your data and you enjoy security and peace of mind.
  • Externally hosted by third-party data centre: use BackupAssist partner data centre, like Amazon S3, etc. or simply select any other reliable data centre.
  • Rsync-=enable NAS device: selected NAS devices offer an inexpensive turnkey solution.
• Set and forget - very little ongoing maintenance required.

Select files and folders to backup

Choose exclusions like *.mp3

Simple to setup, operate and monitor.

BackupAssist makes it easy to set up your Rsync jobs:

• Fully managed using the intuitive User Interface in BackupAssist
• Easily define which files & directories to backup
• Backup local files or network files
• Specify file exclusions (eg. *.mp3) to save space
• Saves time: no messing with complex command line parameters, manual scripting, cygwin versions
• Overcomes the Windows limitation on 253 character filenames

Monitoring the ongoing success of your backups is even easier thanks to the email reporting feature that emails you at the conclusion of each backup.

Fast data transfer.

BackupAssist for Rsync speeds up the process of transferring data over the Internet in two ways:

• It uses a bandwidth-efficient method to transfer your backup data. This minimizes the amount of data that needs to be transferred, because only the data that has changed since the last backup is copied to the offsite destination. (This technology is known as "in-file delta incremental transfer".)
• Your data is automatically compressed so the amount of data to transmit is even further reduced.

Secure

Data is kept safe from prying eyes:

• Automatic Encryption ensures your data is secure while it travels. The encryption level is similar to that offered on secure websites, such as Internet banking.
• Military-grade AES 256-bit encryption and file name obfuscation for backups stored on any Rsync Server.

Schedule and choose scheme

Easy scheduling and backup history

You can set up BackupAssist to run in one of two modes:

• Simple mirror – where your backup device contains an up-to-date mirror of your original file system
• Backup with history – where a range of backups and version history are available (such as Monday – Friday, Week 1 – Week 4, etc). The transparent single-instance-store means that unchanged files are only stored once, saving space and making the backups faster.

Of course, this is all managed behind the scenes by BackupAssist!

Advanced features for reliability

BackupAssist also provides more advanced features, such as

• Bandwidth throttling
• Automatic retries on network drop out
• VSS support
• Backup reports that can be emailed to the system administrator
• Run scripts before and after the backup

Resources

• One page fact sheet
• Rsync White paper
  How Rsync works; best practices; options for data hosting; setting up Windows and Linux Rsync Servers
• Rsync-enabled NAS HCL
  Options for turnkey Rsync backup to NAS

Download the 30-day FREE trial version and test it out for yourself.