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Can I store customer data on Amazon S3 service instead of on my RBS Server?

Question: Can I store customer data on Amazon's S3 service instead of on my RBS Server?

Answer: Yes, you can do this, and there are two options.

The following two options both require a third party utility that can map Amazon S3 buckets as Windows drives. When you do this, you will have a new virtual drive that you can read and write to just like a regular hard drive, except it exists on Amazon S3 instead of on your local computer.

We currently recommend a product called TNTDrive ( http://tntdrive.com/ )

Copy to Disk and Bulk Restore are a problem with both options. Since data is stored up on Amazon S3, and you don’t have physical access to it, you cannot easily and quickly import the first full backup from USB drives like you could if you hosted the data locally. Further, you will not be able to quickly copy your users’ data directly from your Server to USB drives to return to your customers.

However, Amazon has a service that can import and export data to and from S3 using USB drives. There is a charge for this service, and it isn’t as quick as if you had the data locally. Check with Amazon for pricing. ( http://amazon.com/aws/ )

The two options:

  • Send backups directly from the Endpoint to S3, using the RBS Server only for authentication. 

To do this, install TNTDrive on each Endpoint. For storage location, select Cloud Service and deselect “Server” or “RBS Server.” Point the Cloud Service location to the virtual drive created by TNTDrive.

In this configuration the Endpoint software will authenticate with the RBS Server, and it will send its backups directly to S3 through TNTDrive. On restore, Endpoints will get files directly from S3 through the virtual drive. Each client needs his own S3 account.

  • Send backups from Endpoints to your RBS Server, and instead of the RBS Server storing them on a local drive, store them on S3. The RBS Server acts as an authentication server and a staging server.

To do this, install TNTDrive on your RBS Server. Set the Server Root Folder to the virtual drive created by TNTDrive. Make sure all Endpoint accounts  (on the RBS Server) have their Root Directories on the virtual drive instead of a local drive.

In this configuration, Endpoints send their backups to the RBS Server, which immediately sends them to S3 without storing them locally. All Endpoints will share the same S3 account. Only one S3 account is needed.

 

 

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