ATEGO How it Works
ATEGO Cloud Backup uses a unique architecture that allows your source servers and desktops to be backed up without installing any kind of software agent on them. Instead of a software agent, the solution uses a component called the ATEGO DS-CLIENT. This is a piece of software that we install on a server or workstation in your LAN, which in turn accesses the source servers and desktops to be backed up. The advantage of this architecture is that the ATEGO DS-CLIENT does all the work of calculating the changed blocks, de-duplicating the files, compressing and encrypting the data, and managing the backup schedule without stealing any CPU cycles from your production machines.
The ATEGO DS-CLIENT keeps a record of the data that needs to be backed up, and the backup schedule. It queries the source machines to see which files have changed. It calculates the digital signatures of the files to see if a changed file is a duplicate that does not need to be backed up again. It calculates which blocks within the file have changed since the last backup. It then compresses and encrypts the changed blocks using your private AES encryption key, before sending the data off-site to the ATEGO DS-SYSTEM. The ATEGO DS-CLIENT can also optionally keep a local copy of your backup data, so when you want to restore lost data, it can be done at LAN speed.
The deduplicated, compressed, and encrypted, changed blocks of data are sent to the ATEGO DS-SYSTEM according to the schedule you choose. For example, for Senior Managers, you may turn on Continuous Data Protection (CDP) so their desktops are protected all day long - whenever a file changes, it is immediately backed up. For staff who download their emails into PST files, you may want to schedule a backup of their emails while they are at lunch. ATEGO can back up their emails whether their email client is open or not. For production servers, you may only want to back up their files and databases at night when they are less busy. You can define the backup window and throttle the bandwidth as you desire. All the data is sent over your ADSL, SDSL, leased line, or MPLS connection to the Internet.
The ATEGO DS-SYSTEM sits in one of our datacenters in Singapore. We have one in the east of Singapore, and one in the west. Some customers prefer to have their data backed up to a location in the opposite end of the island from where their production servers sit. This is to satisfy the local best practise of having your DR site at least 10km away from your production site.
The ATEGO DS-SYSTEM is a shared storage infrastructure, so many customers will have their data backed up on the system. But, of course, one customer cannot see or read another customer’s data. All the backup data is encrypted using each customer’s private AES encryption key. Not even we can read your data. This is fundamentally different from some other services that encrypt the stored data with a single common encryption key.
When a customer wants to recover data, they can log into the ATEGO DS-CLIENT, either locally or remotely, and use the GUI and wizards to select the data they want to recover. The data will then be restored either from the local storage, if that option is available, or from the remote storage at our site. If the data is too large to be sent back to you via the Internet, don’t worry, we can pump the data, in encrypted format, onto a portable hard drive and courier it to you. You can then load it up to your ATEGO DS-CLIENT for decryption.
If you have any further questions on how the ATEGO Cloud Backup works, please read our FAQ, download a brochure, or contact one of our consultants with your questions.