Cloud backup, also known as online backup, is a strategy for backing up data that involves sending a copy of the data over a proprietary or public network to an off-site server. The server is usually hosted by a third-party service provider, which charges the backup customer a fee based on capacity, bandwidth or number of users. In the enterprise, the off-site server might be owned by the company, but the chargeback method would be similar.Implementing cloud data backup can help bolster an organization’s data protection strategy without increasing the workload on information technology staff.
Options for cloud backup services include:
- Backing up directly to the public cloud. This method entails writing data directly to cloud infrastructure providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
- Backing up to a service provider. An organization writes data to a cloud service provider with backup services in a managed data center.
- Cloud-to-cloud backup. For data that lives in the cloud in software as a service (SaaS) applications, this practice copies that data to another cloud.
