What is BaaS (backup as a service)?

How is BaaS different from other backup approaches?

BaaS companies are equipped to give you a best in class backup for a subscription fee, saving you a lot of costs and time to implement your own solutions. BaaS companies have access to much more storage than an individual, and their storage is far more scalable. They can also provide software to back up, download, and manage your data, saving you the need to acquire all the individual components of a working backup schema by yourself.

Essentially, a BaaS provider is your one-stop shop for your backup needs.

BaaS companies are intrinsically internet companies as well. You will transmit your data over the internet to their storage. As such, to work with a BaaS provider you need internet access, in addition to a device that can run their software. This is different from storing your data on a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) for example, in which case the raw throughput of your hardware to the storage is the only thing that matters.

When Should I Consider Using BaaS?

You want an off-site backup solution.

When you subscribe to BaaS, your data is stored on someone else’s servers. This hardware is managed by experts, more durable and more reliable than what you can get on the market. If you are prevented from accessing your own hardware, you can have peace of mind knowing your data is being stored safely off-site.

You want to lower the up-front costs associated with your backup needs.

The monthly fee of a BaaS provider is going to be much cheaper than buying a rack of SSDs yourself, not to mention the investment of time in managing your backups yourself. It will likely take a long time for that monthly fee to cost you more than setting up your own storage and finding a software solution for it.

You want to leave your backups in the hands of experts.

There are a lot of software and hardware solutions out there that will back up data from an endpoint to attached local storage. Researching all of it yourself can be daunting. A BaaS company has already made many of those decisions for you in that regard. It pares down all the research to one question: which BaaS company is right for you? That is much easier research..

Best Practices for BaaS

In addition to costs, research the following topics related to any BaaS company:

What kind of backup do they offer, and what kind of service do you need?

Think about your own needs and whether the company matches them. Check whether the company offers endpoint or server backup, and whether the backups are unlimited or if there are data caps. Make sure the company’s software supports your hardware and operating systems, and whether the company has the right compliance and policies in place for your legal and liability needs.

What is their security like? Will your data be encrypted?

Since you are signing up to transfer your data to someone else’s servers on a regular basis, make sure that your data is encrypted, deduplicated, and will be stored in a secure fashion by the BaaS company on the other end. Do they use end to end encryption? Do they encrypt data locally before transmitting?

What is BaaS (backup as a service)?

What is BaaS (backup as a service)?

How is BaaS different from other backup approaches?

When Should I Consider Using BaaS?

You want an off-site backup solution.

You want to lower the up-front costs associated with your backup needs.

You want to leave your backups in the hands of experts.

Best Practices for BaaS

What kind of backup do they offer, and what kind of service do you need?

What is their security like? Will your data be encrypted?

We’ve got your back(up)

What is shadow data?

What is deduplication?

What is cloud encryption?

What is business continuity?