From
hosted web servers to office email servers it is now
possible and cost effective to employ Off-site Backup
solutions for critical data using existing external
bandwidth. These solutions can be real time or overnight.
Many
companies use the "off-site tape" method,
sending a backup copy of critical data offsite every
night. In the event of a disaster, recovery involves
setting up the necessary IT infrastructure & restoring
from tape - not to mention the loss of all data changes
since the backup was performed. Anybody who has restored
a single critical server from backup tapes will know
this can take hours or days. In a disaster recovery
situation, you may have to recover 10, 50 or more
servers at the same time - with the business losing
money and customers, hour by hour. In real terms this
could result in the company going out of business.