FAQ

Q10. What are the system requirements for Connected® Online Data Backup and Recovery Services?

02/05/2010 -

Operating system: Windows 7, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP, Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows Vista operating system or Mac OS/X V10.4 & 10.5 (with v8.3)
CPU: Windows 2000 Professional: 133MHz or faster Windows® XP Home Edition or Windows® XP Professional: 233 MHz or faster required, 300 MHz or faster recommended
Memory: 256 MB RAM required, 512MB RAM recommended
Web Browser: Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
Internet connection: Depending on data; at least 512Kbps

Q11. How fast does the Internet connection have to be to use Connected®?

02/05/2010 -

Our Connected® solution is based on patented technologies that minimize bandwidth requirements and ensure reliable, consistent and secure backups even over a dial-up connection.

Our patented Delta Block® technology allows only changed data – at the block level – to be saved. When a document changes, only the changes are backed up. This minimizes network traffic, reduces backup time, enables backup even over dial-up connections and cuts the overall size of stored files.

Another patented technology, SendOnce® backs up common files to a SendOnce pool, preventing extra copies of shared files from being stored on the data center server. Users are saved the time and expense of storing the same files over and over again.

Also, for Connected Backup for PC only, Connected EmailOptimizer™ reduces storage space for local email archive files by an average of 30%. It recognizes redundant attachments and stores them only once, thus drastically reducing storage requirements.

These strategies together minimize network traffic, reduce data storage requirements by up to 85 percent, and enable users to use the service over slower connections.

Q12. How can this solution get deployed to distributed users?

02/05/2010 -

For the enterprise, our Connected® solution offers the tools required to ensure easy deployment across the enterprise as well as centralized management. Both client configuration and backup rules are managed centrally. The Agent software can be installed on the PCs silently by IT. Once the initial full backup is completed, automatic backups complete in minutes, according to the set schedule and configuration.

For smaller businesses, we do 95% of the “heavy lifting” including working with end customers to install the service on their machines.

Q13. How can data be retrieved using Online Data Backup and Recovery Services?

02/05/2010 -

You have instant access to your backed-up data through our secure web portal or by accessing it directly from the protected PC through MyRoam, which offers real-time, web based access for true end user self-service point-in-time restores, without administrative intervention. In this way, the PC user can restore accidentally deleted files in minutes or even seconds. In addition, from the web portal, IT staff or users can retrieve data – any time, from anywhere – with just a few mouse clicks. Since the process is quick and easy, most times users do not require help from IT to retrieve data.

Also, Connected’s Quick Heal feature offers “roll-back” capability which quickly repairs damaged or corrupted applications, configurations and files on any PC- without having to call the help desk.

Data restores for entire PC hard drives can also be sent on CDs or DVDs. Finally, customers love the ease of migrating user data from one PC to another – often a major time sink for IT departments. With our solution, it becomes a painless task that can be accomplished quickly.

Q14. How will this service help with a full system recovery?

02/05/2010 -

A full recovery of a PC can be accomplished either by requesting CDs or DVDs to be shipped or using the PC healing feature through the Agent user interface. In either case, the only installation required prior to restoring user data is the same hardware and the operating system. The “Heal” feature can restore the new system to have identical content as the old one, including all the applications, data files, preferences, and configuration choices for the specific user.

Q15. Can I retrieve multiple/historic versions of files?

02/05/2010 -

Yes. You can restore current or historic versions of files that were backed up, up to 90 days or 10 versions. This is especially important when data gets corrupted, for example, due to an application crash. The ability to revert to a version prior to the infection makes recovery faster and easier, minimizing the amount of data lost as well as keeping user downtime to a minimum.

Q16. What happens if files are open when Connected runs?

02/05/2010 -

Data Mountain’s Connected® Backup for PC will backup all files that are in use, regardless of the file types.

Q17. What types of files can get backed up with Connected® Online Data Backup and Recovery Services?

02/05/2010 -

Our agent will automatically detect and backup data and system files that are located anywhere on the hard disk to ensure full-system backup and recovery. Data files are files created by the PC user, such as documents, spreadsheets, and preferences that the user defined.

Connected uses our patented technology SendOnce® to send duplicate files only once, even for email attachments. This eliminates tremendous amounts of data that would ordinarily be sent and stored multiple times, by the same user or by different users across the organization.

Q18. What about protecting Email with Connected®?

02/05/2010 -

Most organizations consider email to be a business critical application. Most organizations also are experiencing exponential growth in the amount of data encompassed in their email system. IT departments attempt to control this data growth by limiting user mailbox storage sizes. This encourages users to create personal mailboxes on their PCs to store mail. With Data Mountain’s Connected, users and IT staff alike can finally be sure that all user mail is backed up and can be recovered – even if it is stored on the PC.

Connected Backup for PC is also available with Connected EmailOptimizer™, an important feature that enables fast and efficient backup of local email archive files (*.pst -Microsoft Exchange and *.nsf Lotus Notes).

EmailOptimizer allows text and attachments to be identified individually within the email archive and then applies the patented data reduction technologies Delta Block and SendOnce to deliver significant bandwidth and storage efficiencies. In practice EmailOptimizer reduces storage space needed for backing up email by an average of 30%. Another major benefit of using EmailOptimizer is that opened or password protected mail archives can also be backed up.

Q19. How flexible is the Connected configuration?

02/05/2010 -

Connected provides users or IT departments with the flexibility they need to create custom backup configurations.

IT departments can control the type of data that the software backs up or they can allow end-users to change a variety of backup options to suit their particular needs.

In addition, the backups can be run:

• On a schedule:
  • Daily or on specific days
  • At a certain time of day or distributed throughout the day between all the PC to avoid network spikes, etc.
• On demand: the user can run a backup whenever they would like.

Q20. What reporting features are available with Connected® Online Data Backup and Recovery Services?

02/05/2010 -

Data Mountain’s Connected provides you with a number of standard reports that allow you to have easy access to information such as:

• Account lists, and reports on which agent versions are deployed
• Lists of restores, both online and on CDs
• Activity reports and trends
• Lists of accounts that are not backing up
• Backup sizes
• and many more

In addition, you can create your own customized reports to allow you complete control and easy management of you user’s PC backups.

Q21. How long can you retain my data?

02/05/2010 -

For most customers, using our Subscription service, retention policies are pre-defined by Iron Mountain Digital and are as follows:

• The most recent 10 versions of each file backed up are retained on the Data Centers for 90 days.
• Files you delete from your computer are retained on the Data Centers for 90 days.
• Files you de-select from your backup set are retained on the Data Centers for 31 days.
• Canceled Accounts – We retain your data for a courtesy period of 30 days, after which time it is deleted and will no longer be recoverable. We recommend you order CD(s) / DVD(s) of your archives.

For enterprise customers, Connected gives you the option to pre-set your retention requirements.

Q22. Will Connected work with a Firewall?

02/05/2010 -

It will automatically work with virtually any existing firewall in any security architecture.

Q23. What if there are network interrupts or outages?

02/05/2010 -

Our Connected solution will automatically reconnect on line drop and also offers mid-file restart, minimizing backup time even when Internet interruptions occur.

Q24. What if I have a disaster at my site and need data sent to a different location?

02/05/2010 -

Data can be retrieved via the web portal from any PC. If data restores are to be sent on CDs or DVDs, authorized personnel can specify a different location (i.e. hot-site or user recovery site) where Iron Mountain will send your data.

Q25. Can Data Mountain’s Data Protection and Recovery Services make us compliant?

02/05/2010 -

Because compliance is an ongoing, company-wide program, just doing data protection and recovery will not make your company compliant. However, utilizing Data Mountain for your data protection and recovery services will aid in helping you achieve specific compliance objectives. Our Mountain’s high security data vaults, global consistency with locally implemented services, tight chain of custody and assurance of data availability will allow you to show good faith efforts of having consistent controls regarding data protection and recovery of critical business data.

Q27. How do I manage servers at remote locations?

02/05/2010 -

Backing up servers at remote locations is best suited for our LiveVault offering.

Q28. How much is this going to cost me?

02/05/2010 -

We offer different pricing programs depending on your needs. Our pricing takes into account both the number “seats” or machines that will be protected and the amount of data. For Small and Medium sized businesses, we have an easy-to-understand pricing model with groupings of 10, 25, or 50 seats. The amount of data to be protected is sized as 30GB, 50GB, 75GB or 100GB plans.

For companies with more diverse needs and multiple locations, custom pricing is available. Your Data Mountain representative will be happy to discuss your needs with you and generate a proposal for your company.

As compared to traditional backup, we have found that many of our customers save money, since our solutions allow them to eliminate costs for backup software and hardware and offload some of the burden from their servers. It also frees IT staff from the often impossible task of retrieving lost user data and significantly reduces help desk calls as users become self-sufficient with data retrieval.

Overall, the significantly reduced risk of data loss, the ability to centrally capture and manage backups and restores for users across the enterprise through a single interface, and the reduced time to recover are what many of our customers cite as the premium value of our solution.

Q29. How do we get started?

02/05/2010 -

Please contact us at 1-800-704-3394, and one of our sales representatives will be glad to assist you. Once your account agreement has been executed and approved, an Data Mountain system engineer will be available to assist you with the rollout of the solution to your users. They will help establish your backup policy to customize the solution for your specific needs and help you distribute backups so as to minimize bandwidth load. A full backup/synchronization will be performed for each user, typically overnight. Once complete, user backups will proceed automatically as scheduled.