By backing up the data of today and the past, you’re investing in the future.
Backup as a Service or Object Storage? An effective way to protect your data from ransomware is to back it up regularly.
Hardware failure, cyber attack, misconfiguration or human error. All of these can cause IT systems to fail, resulting in lost productivity, lost revenue, or permanent damage to reputation. With the number of attacks on the rise, it is increasingly appropriate to consider higher data protection in company policy, especially in the form of rapid data recovery. Even if you don’t underestimate the importance of cyber threats and are working to eliminate vulnerabilities and increase security levels, you need solutions that minimize the consequences of human failure. Cloud backup services can help you with these challenges. Simply choose the solution, the type of service depending on the needs of your business, as well as your backup, retention and data access requirements.
Looking for an effective way to protect your data from ransomware? Back up regularly!
Backing up to the cloud gives you the assurance that your copy of your data is safe from any threat, whether it’s inadvertent deletion of data, external cyber threats, or internal threats after personnel changes.
The 3-2-1-1-0 principle is a basic recommendation whose function is to ensure that your data is protected from loss or corruption. We don’t need to explain it to most of you, if you need a little orientation, take a look at the cover image.
This principle is the best rule of thumb for ransomware protection, helping to minimize the risk of data loss and ensuring that backup copies are reliable and usable for data recovery. Just a remote backup can be in one or more cloud services.
Which cloud service to choose for backup?
To make the right choice of backup service, it is important to say:
- what we want to back up,
- how much data we are talking about,
- how often the data should be backed up,
- how quickly we need to access the data again.
At the same time, it is a good idea to divide your data into those that no longer change, such as documents from older projects, photos, images and documentation that we back up for archiving purposes. And backups that contain data that we need to access or edit on a regular basis. Most of the time, this is data that you actively work with as part of your day-to-day business.
Then you simply choose the service that best suits your requirements:
- Backup as a service is primarily focused on data backup and recovery. It is an outsourced service that ensures that data is regularly backed up and stored on the service provider’s secure servers, while being quickly available again when needed.
- Object Storage, Object storage is designed for persistent data storage and management. It provides long-term storage for large volumes of data and allows access to it through object identifiers.
What is the difference between these services?
The difference between backup as a service plus object storage relates primarily to their purpose and approach to backing up corporate data. Here are some of the main differences:
Access to data
Backup as a service often works on a file or block level backup and restore basis. Backups are created periodically (for example, a daily incremental backup and a full version every few days) and can be used to restore data in the event of loss or corruption. In contrast, Object Storage provides access to data at the object level. Each object has a unique identifier that is used to find and manipulate data. It is designed to store and manage large volumes of data with options for different types of data such as images, audio files, videos, and documents.
Scalability and storage space
Backup as a service usually provides limited storage space for backups and often requires that certain limits are adhered to. The storage capacity is usually dependent on the agreed service plan. Object storage, on the other hand, is scalable and provides unlimited storage space for data. You can add more objects and increase capacity as needed.
Data management and security
Backup as a service provides regular data backup and recovery according to agreed backup policies. Users upload their data to the provider’s servers, which is responsible for backing up and managing this data. BaaS provides a friendly user interface and simplifies the backup and recovery process.
Object Storage: object storage is a type of storage that focuses on storing large amounts of data in the form of objects. Objects have a unique identifier and can contain different types of data such as files, images, videos, etc. Object storage provides scalability and allows large volumes of data to be stored and managed efficiently.
BaaS providers provide redundant copies of data to minimize the likelihood of data loss in the event of a disaster. Users often have access to various backup points from which they can restore their data.
Object storage also provides some level of data security. Data in object storage is often duplicated in different physical locations to minimize data loss in the event of an outage. Data access is secured through authentication and authorization.
Retention policy and data recovery
Backup as a service provides the ability to set a retention policy according to the client’s needs, which determines how long backups are retained. This allows data to be restored from different points in time in the past as needed. Object storage focuses on persistent data retention with no limitations on time frames. Data is stored long-term and can be accessed at any part of its lifecycle.
Accessibility and recovery speed
Backup as a service focuses on fast and reliable data recovery in the event of data loss or corruption. Service providers often provide different recovery mechanisms, including the ability to recover to different locations and at different speeds. This service is particularly sought after in cases where quick access to ‘live’ data that is critical to the operation of the client’s business is essential.
Object storage is designed for accessing data for long-term archiving and accessing large amounts of data. The recovery rate may be lower compared to backup as a service because it is designed for storage and persistent data availability.
In the digital era, the amount of data that organisations collect and manage is constantly increasing. That’s why at GAMO Cloud we offer both services for our clients:
BaaS allows you to back up applications from virtualized systems in your infrastructure or in our cloud. You determine which critical data you want to protect and the time when the cloud backup should be active. Through the web portal for backups, you are in control of all jobs, the backup policy, the status and result of each job, along with regular reporting. You can backup manually or schedule automatic periodic backups. Our data is exclusively located in Slovakia and does not leave the country. Backups use End-to-End encryption using SSL, with no need to set up a VPN. Data is encrypted before leaving your network perimeter.
In addition, you can set your own security policy on BaaS. Separate retention and encryption per backup and per server. The pricing for this service is the same as Amazon or Azure, the difference is that they still charge for the volume of data transferred, GAMO Cloud does not.
S3 Object Storage is a cloud service, or a reliable interface for securely storing huge amounts of data. Object storage is scalable to unlimited amounts of data, you don’t have to limit yourself in the amount you need to store and manage. Whether it’s sprawling transactional data, large multimedia files, or data from IoT sensors, object storage can handle them all efficiently. So far, we only provide the service in the form of APIs. It is a type of storage that is primarily used for backup and archiving, keeping data safe. You can map it as a remote drive to a server, but you can’t run backup applications from it, it’s explicitly for file storage.
Unlike file storage, object storage stores data and refers to it as an object. Data is stored in separate data stores rather than in bookmarks as with file storage.
What is sure to please everyone is the much lower price, and not at the expense of the quality of service. Object storage offers significant cost advantages. Its ability to scale reduces the costs associated with investing in expensive physical storage and managing complex infrastructures. Object storage also optimizes data management and reduces administrative costs, freeing up resources for other key initiatives. At GAMO, we don’t charge for the volume of data transferred.
Object storage is designed with security and fault tolerance in mind. Your data will be automatically replicated and distributed to different locations, ensuring its security and availability. In the event of an error or hardware failure, data will be restored from backup, minimizing the risk of data loss and recovery to production.
Easy integration with existing systems: Object storage is designed to be easily integrated with existing systems and applications. You can connect it to your existing infrastructure and use it with tools and processes commonly used within your company. This way, you minimize the need for customizations and investment in new systems.
Summary
Backup as a service and object storage have different approaches to backing up and managing corporate data. Backup as a service focuses on periodic backup and recovery of data, while object storage is more focused on persistent storage and management of large volumes of data. It is important to choose the right solution depending on the needs of the organization as well as the backup, retention and data access requirements.
The main difference between BaaS and object storage is that BaaS focuses on backup and fast recovery of data as a service, while object storage is scalable storage for storing large volumes of data in the form of objects. BaaS provides users with a simple interface to manage backup and recovery of data, while object storage enables efficient storage and management of large volumes of data through easy access to objects.
Data security is an important aspect of both approaches. BaaS provides backup and redundant copies of data to minimize data loss in the event of a disaster. Object storage secures data through duplication and authentication/authorization access.
Need advice?
We are here for anyone who understands the importance of backup. Whether you opt for data backup and recovery as a service, or are convinced by scalable storage for storing large volumes of data in the form of objects, together we will design the optimal solution with the best purpose/price/security ratio.
