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The Origins of Hosted Backup Software |
The First Computers
UNIVAC I was the first generation of digital computers. Built by Mauchly & Eckert, its main working components were vacuum tubes and magnetic drums that acted as internal data processing devices. Punch cards were used to enter data and store information.
Magnetic Tape
Magnetic tape makes its first appearance on the market, and begins forcing punch cards into obsolescence.
A single magnetic tape could eliminate the need for thousands of punch cards. As a result, this became the primary means of storage for decades to come.
Backup tapes are still popular today, thanks to their low cost and capacity for storage.
Floppy Disks
Although they were originally invented in the late 60s, floppy disks didn't begin to catch on until the 1970s. They became a popular means of transporting data, but their limited capacity prevented them from being used effectively as a backup media.
CD-R/RW and DVD
First appearing on the market in the early 1980s, CDs were a cost-effective means for media publishers to distribute content. But consumers never really had the ability to record their own DVDs until the early 1990s. Their low costs and ease of use eventually caused optical media to overtake floppy disks.
Although it became an ideal means for consumers and small business to back up their data, companies with large amounts of information still relied on tape.
Networks
As networking began to take off in the early 90s, the virus threat became an increasingly important to IT security professionals. Antivirus software and firewalls could only do so much. Network administrators needed to implement more aggressive backup methodologies.
It was now more important than ever for networking professionals to save multiple copies of their backups, allowing for point-in-time recovery functionality in case of a virus attack.
Modern day hurdles
With the advent of digital cameras, increased use of email attachments, and faster bandwidth speeds, data is now being produced at a rate faster than our ability to create the hard drive capacity to store it.
Another factor compounding this is the falling price of hardware. As hardware becomes less expensive, management costs begin to take on a larger portion of overall IT costs. It's no longer enough to have the junior IT analyst perform the backup and take the tapes offsite to some warehouse.
Companies needed something simpler, more reliable and more secure. They needed a specialized service that could automate their backup process in order to eliminate IT management and hardware complexity hurdles.
Hosted backup software was the next logical step.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Storagepipe was one of the first companies to offer hosted backup software and data recovery services. They innovated by taking IBM's Tivoli enterprise storage system, and making it accessible to companies of all sizes without capital investment. This was un-heard-of at the time.
Instead of investing in expensive equipment that required significant manual work, companies could simply hook up to a remotely hosted backup software service and rent space on someone else's machine. Data backup was now cheaper, easier, faster and more secure than ever.
At the time, this was truly cutting edge.
Today, online backup is quickly becoming the primary means of data protection for businesses of all sizes. And Storagepipe Solutions helped pave the way.
Now, Storagepipe is leading the way once again by offering a partner program that allows resellers, VARs, and ISPs to quickly and easily deploy their own online backup and recovery solutions without any capital investment. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 August 2008 )
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