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Online backup, sometimes called “cloud backup,” is helping IT pros of all stripes better protect the data entrusted to them. Offsite backups have always been an important part of any disaster recovery strategy, but with online backup, your data is really offsite, not just across the street or across town. Thanks to online backup, many SMBs have been able to ditch tape backups once and for all, and find solutions that improve the speed and reliability of data recovery.

For many SMBs, online backup is a no-brainer. It’s a no-muss, no-fuss way to send data offsite while ensuring that it’s available 24x7 via any Internet connection.

The benefits

You can’t beat the scalability

With online backup, you can grow your capacity instantly, whether your goal is to meet spikes in demand or simply to stay on top of steady business growth. Scale up when you need it. Scale back when you’re done with it. You’ll never need to overprovision, so you’ll never pay for more than you use.

It’s easy to set up and use

IT pros consistently report that online backup is both easy to implement and easy to use. You also don’t have to deal with multiple admin interfaces for your various types of backup. Whether you’re backing up endpoints or servers, documents or databases, one console does it all. And unlike tape backups that can take hours to restore (assuming they’re any good), online backups are as close as your nearest Internet browser.

Your backups are safer than you are

How far offsite are your current offsite backups? What will happen to them if a hurricane hits or a zombie infestation wipes out the local population? While the cloud is not a magical place immune from disaster, your online backups are probably not going to be affected by the same catastrophes that affect your part of the world.

## The challenges

Online backup is not necessarily a cure-all for your backup blues, especially if you have a ton of Tier 1 data and an itty-bitty budget to work with.

Online backup is not without risk

Anytime you entrust data to a third party, you introduce an element of risk. Online backup definitely falls in that category, and as such carries the possible risk of service outage, data loss, security breach or compliance violation. It’s essential to choose a vendor with a good reputation, a clean track record, and a strong security guarantee.

Bandwidth can put you in a bind

Sending boatloads of data across the Internet at regular intervals requires a decent amount of bandwidth that the average SMB may or may not have to spare. How much you’ll need will depend on how much data you’re sending and how often. The same goes for getting that data back. Make sure you have sufficient bandwidth to make a quick recovery should you need it.

The price tag may give you sticker shock

Online backup is not necessarily cheap, especially if you have a lot of data to send offsite. Small businesses in particular may have a hard time justifying the cost, especially if you’ve been using a low-cost tape-based solution. To help reduce the price tag, plan on using online backup to protect only your most business-critical data.

Want to learn more?

Read all about cloud backup options as well as https://community.spiceworks.com/blogs/cloudarticles/2728-cloud-backup-benefits-and-challenges best practices !

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Excellent points, although I’m not sure why cloud backups would be a no brainer for an SMB. Some SMBs can still have large amounts of data. Sure storing that data in the cloud is dirt cheap but you get hit with hefty charges for pulling it down and you need a big pipe to get that data down quickly. For SMBs tape backups are still very much effective, NAS devices or some sort of hybrid cloud setup.

Ultimately cloud backups depend on your RTO/RPO objectives and what your overall DR plan looks like. Without having those in place there is little point to invest in a backup platform until you’re certain you know what you really need.

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You’ll find that you can do a hybrid cloud and local backup with most cloud backup providers. Add a USB external drive and back up to it once or twice a week. Makes for quicker recoveries in case of an emergency with the cloud backup acting as your fail-safe.

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Understanding the volume of data is important. Since people don’t see the data, they often don’t realize how much they are keeping.

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There is a further issue that is less likely to be addressed but is a real concern. What if your online backup vendor goes broke or proves to be so unreliable that it becomes an untenable position to use said vendor? What happens to your data and how to you retrieve it in the event of a failure or a need to retrieve old data? Having experienced serious technical issues of the backup vendors software which connects to the cloud and then having found retrieval of the data not only difficult to achieve but also extremely slow (much slower, in fact, than sending it!), it has put serious questions in my mind about the viability of such a solution long term. The slowness is entirely on the vendors side. This vendor, by the way, is one of the big boys in the game…

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Bingo.

This is how we deploy the majority of our backup solutions for our clients. One of our MSP offerings is cloud backup. Our “typical” small business backup solution is to perform full backups, including image backups to a local NAS. A secondary data-only backup is made to the cloud. The backups to the NAS are regularly backed up to external USB drives and taken off-site for DR.

The NAS to USB is handled through the NAS software (we use primarily Synology NAS devices, which have an excellent app for this).

The cloud and backup to NAS are handled through our partnership with Acronis.

Note: There is no per-GB charge for any of the local backup jobs, only the amount of data stored on the cloud servers.

We have used other providers in the past and have reviewed numerous others. Acronis is giving us as an MSP a model that we can resell to our customers at an EXTREMELY affordable price. In addition, using this model, we can backup client’s Office 365 data and their mobile devices (phones, tablets).

Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement for Acronis, but I really do LOVE the tools they are providing for us.

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One thing I found is that if you want to do image based backups, something has to be running in the cloud for incremental forever style backups (or if you have small data I guess you can resend a full). But that processing power required turns into $$$ really fast as the storage price goes way up comparing S3 to EC2…

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Im really going to this scenario, actually the enterprise i work for is doing the backup in external HDs, im preparing to suggest a hybrid cloud based backup,im just getting stuck with the doc elaboration.I Dont wanna get “no” as answer.

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This is great advice. Thinking that a single backup will completely cover your organization’s DR needs is dangerous. No matter what solution you use, if there’s not a secondary copy of your backups in a different format geographically separate from your original backup, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Fires, floods, tornadoes, ransomware & other threats are all real (even at cloud data centers) & a hybrid solution provides protection for your data no matter whether the threat happens in your environment or at your cloud provider. Remember, it’s not a matter of if, but when.

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In an era where data is the lifeblood of almost every business, the risk of losing that data is not just an IT concern—it’s a business survival issue. From ransomware attacks to hardware failures, from accidental deletions to natural disasters, the threats to your business-critical information are numerous and growing. One small incident can cause major disruption, financial loss, and even permanent damage to your brand’s reputation.

This is where cloud backup and disaster recovery (DR) step in as vital safeguards. These technologies offer a powerful and reliable safety net, ensuring that your data is not only stored securely offsite but also easily recoverable when things go wrong.

What Is Cloud Backup?

Cloud backup involves automatically copying and storing your business data to a secure cloud-based server. Unlike traditional backups stored on physical drives or tapes—which are vulnerable to theft, damage, or loss—cloud backups are encrypted, scalable, and accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. They provide a continuous, real-time backup solution that eliminates the risk of data loss from local failures.

Understanding Disaster Recovery (DR)
Disaster recovery goes beyond simply backing up your files. It’s a comprehensive strategy designed to restore your entire IT environment—applications, data, servers, and systems—after a catastrophic failure. A robust DR plan ensures business continuity by minimizing downtime and enabling rapid recovery so you can resume operations with minimal disruption.

Benefits of Cloud-Based Backup and DR Solutions

  • 24/7 Data Protection: Cloud solutions automatically back up data in real time or at scheduled intervals, reducing the risk of loss.

  • Reduced Downtime: In the event of a failure, cloud DR systems can spin up your environment in minutes—not hours or days.

  • Cost Efficiency: No need for expensive physical infrastructure. You pay only for what you use.

  • Scalability: As your business grows, cloud solutions grow with you, seamlessly adapting to your data needs.

  • Security and Compliance: Top cloud providers use encryption, access controls, and compliance-ready infrastructure to keep your data safe and meet regulatory standards.

  • Accessibility and Flexibility: Access your backups or restore systems from virtually anywhere, ideal for remote or hybrid work environments.

Read more: How Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery Can Save Your Business from Data Loss

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Don’t forget to consider backup of your cloud data. Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, etc. offer a shared responsibility model where your data is guaranteed to be available but the integrity is the customer’s responsibility. This introduces another level of complexity to the discussion. We partner with a vendor who has a cloud first methodology to backup not only on premise data to the cloud but also cloud workloads in the event of ransomware, data loss, tenant compromise, etc. I’d love to discuss further if anyone wants to deep dive into this topic in a new thread.