Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT ARE THE MAIN TECHNICAL FEATURES OF THE DATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP?

WHAT SECURITY IS AVAILABLE AND USED THROUGH DATASAFE?

• Encryption support provided to protect users personal data
• Robust encryption based on the blowfish algorithm
• Authentication support between the client and our server environments.

WHAT DEPLOYMENTS CAN DATASAFE SOFTWARE SUPPORT?

• Trusted intranet P2P backup deployment
• Typical client-server backup deployment
• Remote backup with DataSafe servers residing outside the intranet
• Staged backup solutions available where applicable 

WHAT PLATFORMS DOES DATASAFE SUPPORT?

• All Windows Desktop systems post 2000 and Microsoft Server Platforms post 2000
• Debian Linux 3.0 and above
• Mandrake Linux 10.0 and above
• RedHat Linux 8.x and above
• SuSE Linux 9.x and above
• Mac OS X 10.x and above
• FreeBSD 5.4 and above

WHAT BROWSER OPTIONS DO DATASAFE SUPPORT?

DataSafe requires one of the following browsers to be installed in the system

• Internet Explorer 5.5 and above
• Firefox 1.0 and above
• Netscape 7.0 and above
• Opera 7.01 and above
• Mozilla 1.5 and above
• Safari 1.2.4 and above

DOES DATASAFE SUPPORT SYSTEM STATE / ACTIVE DIRECTORY?

System State / Active Directory backups in DataSafe are treated like any other data backup. DataSafe 1-Click selection of preset backups now includes the system state / active directory allowing you to simply select it with 1-Click.

DOES DATASAFE SUPPORT MICROSOFT EXCHANGE? 

DataSafe supports Exchange Server backups for Exchange Server 2000 with Service Pack 3 and above

The Advanced (Plugin) Exchange Server backup uses the ESE ( Extensible Storage Engine ) API to backup Storage Groups and Mail Stores.

Incremental features in the Advanced plug-in include:

• Optimal use of dump files for local storage: the dump file is compressed and automatically purged after use
• Support for Storage Group level and Mail Store Level backup
• Straight through Restore of Exchange Server backup
• Comprehensive Backup & Restore report of Exchange Server backup is available
• Detailed Exchange Server Backup & Restore email reports available

DOES DATASAFE SUPPORT SQL & MYSQL?

DataSafe supports SQL Server backups for SQL Server 2000 and all higher versions.

The Advanced SQL Server plugin uses the VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) API to backup database(s) before uploading them to the backup server.

Incremental features in the Advanced plug-in include:

• Optimal use of dump files for local storage: the dump file is compressed and automatically purged after use.
• Straight through Restore of SQL Server backup
• Comprehensive Backup & Restore report of SQL Server backup is available
• Detailed SQL Server Backup & Restore email reports available

HOW DOES DATASAFE HANDLE INCREMENTAL DATA?

The ability to intelligently handle incremental data is a key component of any backup solution! This has huge implications on performance and infrastructural and operational costs- bandwidth and storage costs being the most crucial of these!

Our Intelli-Delta technology, based on the powerful & proven RSYNC algorithm, ensures that after the first 'seed' backup, only 'optimized byte level' changes in individual files & folders are backed up thereafter.

Most backup software implement incremental backups in fixed block sizes (eg. 4K blocks). In effect, they divide files into blocks of a pre-decided size, examine CHECKSUMS of blocks that are detected to have changed and re-transmit the changed blocks.

DataSafe does not implement pre decided block sizes as this is often sub-optimal. For a small file, the block size may be too large and hence translate to a larger amount of data being sent than what's required. For very large files, a small block size translates to performance degradation. DataSafe decides on optimal block sizes for every single file after taking into account the original file size. This ensures that for each file, changes are examined at an 'optimized byte level'.

DataSafe Now Supports Synthetic Full Backups.  Once an Incremental version of a File gets too large a synthetic full will be sent.  A Synthetic Full is the Changed blocks since the Last Full or Previous Synthetic Full.  This then tells the algorithm that this is what the next incremental needs to compare to. This minimises the size of Incrementals even further.

HOW DOES DATASAFE ENSURE SECURITY BETWEEN THE CLIENT AND THE DATASAFE SERVER ENVIRONMENTS?

DataSafe uses the following, to ensure the security of data:

1. Authenticated connection between client and the backup server environment. During the client-server connection initialization, the client and the backup servers generate random private/public key pairs and based on this random key pair the authentication takes place with the client password (hashed and encrypted with the private key). The private keys are never sent out from the client or the server.

2. The backup data encryption password is hashed before sending it to the backup server. Also, DataSafe uses its own protocol (not HTTP) over raw TCP sockets for communication between the client and the backup server. The passwords are never transmitted in clear text. Even if the connection between the client and server is through raw TCP sockets (and not using SSL over TCP) the passwords can never be read as they are all hashed and sent.

3. DataSafe design the backup server to never require the encryption password. The hashed encryption password is sent only to allow the backup servers to verify that the encryption password has not changed for the scheduled backup. If it did change, the backup server would not accept the backup as the encryption passwords cannot be changed once created.

4. Therefore, even if the data is intercepted while in transition from the client to the backup server, the encryption password cannot be acquired. Without the encryption password, the encrypted backup data cannot be decrypted. The same is the case with the authentication password used for connection between the client and the backup server.