For an online backup system to meet your backup window and recovery time objectives, assessing and smartly using available bandwidth is a key factor. Determining available bandwidth is relatively easy (see the test on the main page). How a particular backup system uses the available bandwidth, however, can have a dramatic effect on the required bandwidth.

• How much data does your backup generate? Is it a full backup? Is it an incremental backup?
• How intelligent is the software about minimizing the amount of data to transfer for incremental backups?
• Does the system provide acceleration? De-duplication? Throttling?

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Zetta Data Protect with the ZettaMirror agent provides many features for bandwidth usage optimization:

• ZettaMirror maintains a local record of file changes and only updates those portions of a file that have changed.
• ZettaMirror aggressively utilizes multi-threading (transferring multiple files at the same time) to maximize the utilization of the available bandwidth (within any throttling limits specified).
• Backup data at Zetta is immediately accessible via either a web browser or mounted directly from a remote server, eliminating the requirement for a long restore/transfer before access.

One of the biggest concerns in using an outside online service is data security.

• Can someone unauthorized see my data?
• Can someone change my data?
• Can I meet my compliance requirements if my data is stored in an online service?

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The Zetta storage service is built to enterprise standards, and data security is at the top of the list.

• Your data is encrypted, both in transit and when stored on disk.
• All access to your data is authenticated and logged.
• Zetta maintains a SAS 70 Type II certification on the physical data center where your data is stored as well as the software and policies and procedures having to do with how your data is stored and accessed.
• Zetta provides securities and safeguards, including optional data immutability and preservation guarantees, which allows you to meet compliance requirements.

Not all service providers provide the same level of data assurance and data accessibility options which can affect your ability to accesses your data at all and in the time-frames required to meet your recovery objectives.

• Is your data protected against multiple simultaneous system or device failures?
• Can your data be protected against an entire datacenter outage?
• Can you access your data from anywhere? Without the use of an appliance?

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A key strength of the Zetta service architecture is storing your data in a multi-node parity, RAIN-6 format that protects against three or more simultaneous failures. And your data is stored and presented in a native file system format for immediate use. Your data never has to be reconstructed or "unpacked." It is ready for instance use when you need it.

• Multi-node RAIN-6 data protection against three or more concurrent failures.
• Instant, authorized data access via web-portal, from anywhere, no external appliance required.
• Remote file system mounting for immediate server data access.
• Multi-site replication option for site-wide protection.

There are multiple aspects to assessing offsite data protection costs, including the cost of not having access to your data in the case of a data, server or site failure.

• Tape-only solutions require an offsite tape storage service, media, and possible tape automation equipment. Rapid recoveries are not possible, under the best of circumstances. Recoveries require retrieval and return of multiple media needed to reconstruct the lost or corrupted data.
• Disk-to-disk solutions do not provide disaster protection unless the second system is at another location adding substantially to the cost, including replication software and communications equipment.
• A blended disk-to-disk-to-tape solution can provide faster local data recoveries but at a substantial cost premium requiring most of the expenses of both a disk-to-disk and a tape only solution.

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The Zetta online storage service has both direct and indirect cost advantages:

• The Zetta service is all-inclusive with charges only for backup storage footprint. No appliance to buy and maintain, no software license fees, and no bandwidth or IOPS charges.
• No expenses to maintain a dual datacenter to house your remote data.
• No pre-buying of capacity, the Zetta service scales as your backup footprint scales.