Benefits of using GBackup Software in your Business

Secure and reliable

Unlike conventional backup methods, your critical data is encrypted (128-bit!), compressed, and then uploaded to a REMOTE server hosted by you via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) with enhanced security. Everything is run automatically with no human intervention required. This eliminates all possibilities of negligence induced problems. This robust design guarantees an extremely high rate of successful restoration.

Best fit your business need

GBackup Software comes with all essential backup features for business users. Everything required to back up your business data is now bundled inside, thus making Gbackup the only backup software you need.

Easy to manage

Installation of Gbackup is easy to follow with an intuitive wizard guided user interface. After simple configuration, backup will be done automatically without human intervention. Restoration can be done in just "A-Click". Anyone with basic computer skills will be able to manage it effortlessly.

Limited cost, unlimited protection

Once GBackup Software is deployed in your company, your invaluable data are protected from fire, vandalism, terrorist attacks, war and natural disasters, etc. While the cost of Gbackup is limited, the value of critical business data it protects and the potential benefits you can derive from these data are enormous and unlimited.

Use with confidence

Gbackup is part of an internationally proven solution with more than 500,000 installations worldwide. With such a huge installation base, you can be sure that all possible problems have been identified and corrected already. Therefore, you can use it with peace of mind.

First Vista Service Pack Announced

For many of us who've bravely entered the bug-filled world of Microsoft Vista, news of first the first Vista service pack couldn't have come at a better time.

The Mail & Guadian reports ...

Microsoft says it will release a major package of updates and fixes for the Windows Vista operating system in the first half of 2008.

The company says a "beta" test version of Service Pack 1 (SP1) will be released "in a few weeks to a moderate-sized audience". The SP1 beta includes updates Microsoft has already made to the operating system it started selling to consumers at the end of January.

The service pack fixes some common problems that cause computers to crash or freeze, Microsoft says, including compatibility problems with some newer graphics cards, external monitors and printer drivers.

Microsoft says it also fixed some problems users had with putting their PCs to sleep and waking them up again. SP1 is also expected to improve battery performance, increase the speed of copying files and help Internet Explorer run faster on Vista.

The Redmond, Washington-based software maker says SP1 also brings several security improvements.

Microsoft expects to release Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, Vista's predecessor, in the first half of 2008 as well, but in a statement added that it "should not significantly change the Windows XP experience".

In the past, some of Microsoft's business clients used the release of a service pack as a sign that a new operating system was stable enough to install. Analysts have said Vista seems more reliable out of the box than past versions of Windows, and that businesses need not wait for the service pack. -- Sapa-AP

Goodbye HDD and Hello SDD!

Samsung’s new Solid State Drives are essentially big bundles of flash memory—up to 64GB—that replace traditional hard drives. Laptops using SSDs are lighter, faster and quieter than those with conventional drives. As price comes down and capacities increase, all computers may give up spinning disks for SSDs.

From Popular Mechanics

Online backup makes good common sense

Small businesses often struggle with data backup and recovery for a variety of reasons. For example lack of knowhow or budget.That is until now That was because finding an affordable, easy-to-use system that didn't require constant monitoring came under the heading of Mission Impossible.

But with so many options out there, how do you know which solution to choose?

Easy as pie

The best part about online backup is that the hosted service makes it the appropriate choice for small businesses, whereas enterprise-level companies would most likely buy the software and host it on their own servers. A small business owner would never have to worry about storage space.

Hosted storage solutions work on a simple basic premise. You sign up online, select a service plan, download our software and begin the initial full backup. Automated storage is a critical requirement for SMBs. Small business owners need to focus on their business, not on IT chores.

Of course the other half of the data storage coin is recovering your data in the event of a system crash or natural disaster. With online recovery, you simply use any Web browser, and select the files that you want to recover.

It's easy and it's versatile and more importantly for SMEs it's inexpensive. Get started on Gbackup for as little as R68.40 per month incl VAT.

Thanks to Small business computing for additional information

Watch out! Malicious code infects PC users

Web shops are the number one victims hit by the attack

This worrying report comes from BBC News, it looks like it's getting harder to defend systems against these types of attacks.

Thousands of small web shops have been unwittingly poisoned with malicious code that infects PC users who visit.

Security experts said the sophisticated attack had succeeded on a larger scale than many other similar attacks.

Once installed on a Windows machine the malicious code steals passwords, browser data as well as login names for bank accounts and online games.

The attack is proving hard to defend against for both sites being hit and PC users who are caught out.

Big hitter

Security researchers at ScanSafe, Finjan and Secure Works separately discovered the nest of poisoned websites. Estimates of how many sites have been enrolled into the attack vary. ScanSafe said it knew of about 230 but Secure Works and Finjan believe the total could be as high as 10,000.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of Finjan, said it had been following the attack since early December when it noticed an increase in the number of attacks using poisoned websites.

"It's safe to say that there are thousands of these out there," he said. He added that it was hard to get an accurate picture of just how many had been hit because security firms had limited resources to scan all potential targets.

Writing on the ScanSafe blog Mary Landesman said many of the poisoned sites were small "mom and pop" web shops rather than large web retailers. Despite this, she wrote, many had large numbers of visitors because they did well in web searches for particular products and services.

Sites enrolled by the ongoing attack include trade papers, travel firms, ad brokers, estate agents, butchers, hotel booking sites and car spare specialists.

Although all the websites that have become poisoned hosts use the same server and remote administration software, researchers have struggled to spot all the ways they are being compromised.

"We know some of the methods," said Mr Ben-Itzhak, "they are trying to exploit known vulnerabilities in open source content management software that the sites are using."

Spotting the attack code on a site was very difficult, he said, because every time a new user visited the code got a new, random five character name. If a visitor returned the malicious code identified them and did not launch a second attack.

Open Windows

Simon Heron, managing director of security firm Network Box, said: "It looks like the rootkit type technique that we have been worried about for the last two or three years. It's very clever."

A rootkit hides itself deep inside an operating system in an attempt to avoid detection.

Mr Heron said the code injected on the websites scanned the machine of any visiting Windows user to see if any one of 13 separate vulnerabilities were present.

It looked for vulnerabilities in browsers, instant messaging programs, document readers and media players, he said.

The code installs a small trojan through any one of these loopholes then lies dormant until a user types in data that it is interested in - such as login names for online banks or games such as World of Warcraft.

As yet the trojan installed on a PC is not recognised by many widely used anti-virus programs.

Philippe Courtot, founder and head of security firm Qualys, said small web shops and companies were increasingly becoming a target for criminally-minded hackers.

"Small businesses do not have the money to protect themselves," he said.

He added that hosting firms who owned and ran the servers on which these firms place their websites, viewed security as something extra they had to do rather than build it in.

"Hosting companies, for them today, adding security is a cost," he said.

Defend yourself in style, iTaser

How about one, for Valentines Day? This report comes from Popular Mechanics

What do you get when you mix a dangerous weapon with an MP3 player? Well, it's not quite a humanitarian crisis so much as a case of gadget convergence straight out of The Onion. I mean, seriously, this thing's called the iTaser.


Alas, Taser International has just released a stylish new stun gun holster that has a built-in 1GB MP3 player. After all, just because you're afraid of muggers doesn't mean you can't make yourself more vulnerable by listening to music in poorly-lit parking lots. Users are presumably encouraged to pair it with the new, leopard-print lady Taser (pictured above at the Taser booth at CES)—and to include Billy Idol's "Shock To The System" on their playlists.

Basic factors for a Disaster Recovery plan

From W. Curtis Preston's book Unix Backup & Recovery.

There are six main steps to designing any good disaster recovery plan. These steps concentrate on how the CIO or CTO can enable the IT department to properly execute each step.

1. Define (un)acceptable loss. How does the CEO/CIO decide how much to budget for a disaster recovery project? By first deciding how much it will cost if they don't have one.

2. Backup everything. Do you know how much of your data is not being backed up and why?

3. Organize everything. Your company has everything on tape. Can you find the tape you need when disaster strikes?

4. Protect against disasters. Most people only think about natural disasters when creating a disaster recovery plan. There are nine other types of disasters and you have to protect against all of them. Learn what types of disasters strike your area and how your company can protect against them.

5. Document what you have done. Learn innovative ways that your company can document its disaster recovery plan that ensures that this documentation is available after a disaster.

6. Test, test, test. Most disaster recovery plans fail because they are not tested. Learn how other companies are testing their disaster recovery plans. There are ways to do this that won't swallow the entire IT budget!

IBM software for Apple

E-mail software from IBM will be available on Apple iPhones and iPod Touch devices under a new partnership that brings together two big rivals of Microsoft, reports Associated Press.

IBM plans a formal announcement of the Lotus Notes e-mail package for Apple's portable devices at its Lotusphere conference, in Orlando, Florida, next week. The software, which requires use of IBM's Domino e-mail server program, will be free for users who already have a Lotus Web-access licence and start at $39 per year for new users.

IBM also plans to release Lotus Notes and the free Lotus Symphony "productivity" package – which includes documents, spreadsheets and other Microsoft Office-like software – for Apple's Macintosh computers.

Courtesy of IT Web

Best practice tips for better backup in 2008

Do you know how your organization measures up in regard to the basics of backup operations? Here's a checklist of 10 areas you should focus on to build a more effective backup practice.

1. Plan ahead. Backup is one strategic component of data protection; others include mirrors, snapshots and replication. In most environments, traditional backup serves as the last resort for data recovery. But as a strategic element, backup planning should be a fundamental part of the overall storage plan.

Gbackup's fully automated remote data backup serves as an easy, cost effective and hassle-free solution to your company's backup needs.

2. Establish a life cycle operations calendar. An effective backup operation requires certain tasks to be completed successfully every day. There are also weekly, monthly, quarterly and even annual tasks that are as important as daily tasks. While short-term tasks are highly tactical, long-term tasks tend to be more strategic. In an effective backup operations environment, all tasks should be documented and performed on schedule.

Gbackup's Open File Agent continues to backup files whilst they are being worked on.

3. Review backup logs daily. A review of backup application error and activity logs is a key daily task--but one that's often easier said than done. Log analysis can be time-consuming, but it can pay extremely valuable dividends and is essential to reliable backup.

Gbackup sends you a daily email notifications on your current backup status for you to review. Gbackup software is pre-configured to use bit-backup technology. This technology assesses each individual file and only sends changes within each file to our servers after the initial backup. This ensures that no errors are incurred as well as maintaining an efficient backup solution leaving you confident and satisfied.

4. Protect your backup database or catalog. All backup applications maintain a database or catalog that's absolutely critical to the recovery of backed up data. Lose the catalog and you've lost your backups. While some backup applications have mechanisms for reading through tapes and recovery indexes, this can be an onerous--if not impossible--task.

Gbackup automatically keeps and sends you a catalogue of backed up data, it is imperative that you keep a record of this - which Gbackup will backup as well.

5. Identify and resolve backup window failures daily. Backup window failures are successful backups that exceed the expected backup window. Because the backup job itself completes, no errors are reported in the error log, so this problem is often overlooked. In addition to affecting production environments and creating user dissatisfaction, jobs that approach or exceed the backup window may be warning signs of impending capacity limits or performance bottlenecks. Recognizing and addressing these issues as early as possible can prevent future failures and avoid user dissatisfaction.

Gbackup solves this problem by constantly re-evaluating your PC, laptop or server system. Multiple copies of files are stored using a sophisticated version control system, unavailable in most other backup software. In addition the auto select functionality can be used to ensure that specific types of files, for example .doc, excel etc. , will get backedup irrespective of where they are.

6. Locate and back up orphan systems and volumes. Your backup software invariably provides you with some level of reporting information about daily backup success.

Gbackup automatically keeps and sends you a notification of your backup status which includes the amount of files backed up; the size of your compressed backed up data; the percentage of your storage quota used. Also attached is are log files that illustrate exactly which data was backed up.

7. Centralize and automate the backup management as much as possible. A key to successful data protection is consistency. This doesn't mean that all data must be treated in the same manner. What it does mean is that all data of equivalent value and importance to the organization should be managed in a similar fashion.

Gbackup automatically backups your data, encrypts it, sends it over the Internet to a secure off-site location. The entire process is completely automated. Our various packages Gbackup Manager and Gbackup Lite ensures you peace of mind knowing that all data within the organization, from the server to mobile units are managed consistently and effectively without impacting on staff productivity.

8. Create and maintain an open issues report. Finding and fixing problems are tactical activities critical to backup success. However, the process of managing those problems effectively and establishing appropriate metrics indicative of backup quality is essential to drive systemic improvement of backup infrastructures.

Gbackup provides you with live and on site support 24/7 365days. Try it out yourself visit our site and chat to a consultant right away.

9. Ensure that backup is integrated with the change control process. Backup environments are by their nature highly dynamic. Unfortunately, within backup organizations, too often the change process for backup is equally dynamic. Just as backup must be part of the strategic planning process, on an operational level, backup must be part of an organization's formal change control process.

Gbackup works within a variety of platforms whilst constantly re-evaluating your system.

10. Leverage your vendors effectively. A fundamental question that you must be able to answer is: Does your vendor have the right skills to support your needs? All technical problems get resolved, eventually. If your technical problem isn't being resolved in a reasonable amount of time, then you may not be working with the right vendor. This becomes extremely apparent when multiple products from multiple vendors are integrated.

Gbackup's team of highly trained technical staff are on hand at all times. We are also constantly manually monitoring your backups together with our automated backup software. Providing you with a world class backup solution.

These 10 tasks may seem basic, but accomplishing them isn't always easy. They depend on a number of key elements: appropriate reporting and measurement capabilities, a high degree of staff competency within the backup organization and solid cross-functional communication. The impediments can be significant, including costs, resource availability, skill levels, organizational politics and a host of others.

Checklist courtesy of www.searchstorage.com

So how does Gbackup Online Backup Software work?

The Gbackup Suite consists of 3 main modules:

1. The client software – Gbackup Manager and Gbackup Lite
2. The server software – Gbackup Server
3. The replication server – Gbackup Replication Server

Gbackup Manager is a client application with a user-interface for easy backup configuration. It allows you to upload selected files to the Backup server and whilst running scheduled backup jobs. It also allows you to create different backup sets for different backup purpose. Besides file backup, Gbackup Manager can backup a list of applications such as MS Exchange, MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, Lotus Domino, and much more. OBM supports Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Linux, Mac OS X, etc.

Gbackup Lite is a client application with essential file backup functionalities and an intuitive user-interface targeting for simple end-users. It allows users to upload selected files to the Backup server and runs scheduled backup jobs.

Gbackup Server is a server application which stores backup data from multiple Gbackup Manager and Lite backup accounts. It has a web-based Management Console for system administrators to manage the Backup Server, such as configuring system and backup account settings, and viewing backup statistics and reports. Users can also logon to this Management Console to manage their own backup account or restore their own backup data. Gbackup Server supports Windows, Linux and Mac OS platforms.

Gbackup Replication Server is another server application running on a separate machine, it provides close to real-time backup for multiple Gbackup Servers. So even if one of the server failed, the Gbackup Replication Server still has a copy of the backup data.

For more information visit our website or chat to a consultant here

Become a Gbackup re-seller

Here is a great business opportunity for small IT companies. Gbackup strives to team up with partners that are both knowledgeable and motivated to succeed.
All you need to do is actively promote the Gbackup service to your existing clients.

What will Gbackup will do for you?

• Gbackup will bill your clients on your behalf.
• Gbackup will provide free telephonic and online live support to clients.
• Gbackup will provide you your own online managing system.
• Gbackup will provide you with marketing materials up to R5 000.
• Gbackup will complete the sale with clients n your behalf.
  
• Gbackup will pass on installation and on site work to you once you complete our optional training course.

You can then choose to either opt for the commission structure or choose to purchase Gbackup solutions at wholesale prices.

What is required to become a partner?

All it takes is a nominal fee of R68.04 incl VAT to become a Gbackup partner. This will include a Gbackup Lite License with 50MB of compressed data storage. You will also be rewarded with further discounts based on the amount of business you bring in.

To speak to one of our consultants live or for further information click here.

India's Tata Motors launch new Nano

Everyone in the office is talking about ....

India's Tata Motors on Thursday unveiled its much anticipated US$2 500 (R17 000) car, an ultracheap price tag that suddenly brings car ownership into the reach of tens of millions of people across the world.

While the price has created a buzz, critics say the vehicle, called the Tata Nano, will lead to millions more cars hitting already clogged Indian roads, adding to mounting air and noise pollution problems. Others have said Tata will have to sacrifice quality and safety standards to meet the target price.

Company Chairperson Ratan Tata has said the car will be the least polluting car on the Indian roads and meet necessary safety standards.

He argues that the car would be better and far safer than most motorcycles on India's roads.

Chief UN climate scientist Rajendra Pachauri, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, said last month that "I am having nightmares" about the prospect of the low-cost car.

While introducing the car at an auto show in New Delhi, Tata said the Nano had passed emission standards and would average about 50 miles per gallon.

"Dr. Pachauri need not have nightmares," Tata said.

Dealers will sell the car for 100,000 rupees - converting to R 17 448 -, but customers will pay slightly more than that due to taxes and other charges.

The four-door five-seater car has a small 33bhp 624cc engine at the rear and is due to hit the market later this year.

The Tata Nano - which looks almost exactly like a Smart - has no air conditioning, no electric windows and no power steering for the basic model, although two deluxe models will be on offer.

But Ratan Tata compared the launch of the car as a landmark in the history of transportation like the first powered flight by the Wright brothers and the first lunar landing.

He said he wanted to make "a safe, affordable and all weather transport - a people's car, designed to meet all safety standards and emissions laws and accessible to all" and "a car that most people said could not be manufactured at that price". AFP

Get FREE backup

There is nothing worse than finding your company's crucial data corrupted. Gbackup allows you to quickly and effectively restore data within minutes. Saving you time.

When considering purchasing a backup solution, based on best practices, the following should be kept in mind.

• Backups should be done daily.
• All backups should be stored off site.
• Backups should be verified once completed.
• The medium used to store the backups should be highly reliable.
• The backup process must be efficient, effective and meet your unique needs.
• The backup must be quick to restore your data, in order to minimize downtime in case of a disaster.

Gbackup does all this without you having to lift a finger.
Try it for yourself. Simply click on our logo to download a trial version. And go straight to "Getting Started"

New year, new look

We at Gbackup would like to wish you a Happy New Year! Already 2008 has brought with it some fantastic new changes.

Now you can expect live support from any of our departments - sales, accounts and support - 24/7 365. So now you can chat to us live with any queries you may have about Gbackup. We are here for you!

So take a little of the burden off your shoulders this year, let Gbackup take care of all your data backup requirements.

To speak to one of our consultants right now click here