The following are some of the most commonly asked questions regarding US Signal’s BaaS solutions ─ and the answers to them. For questions not covered here, your US Signal account representative will be happy to help. Or contact US Signal at (866) 274-4625 or by email at info@ussignal.com.
What is US Signal Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) solution?
BaaS is a service that provides customers with the ability to back up premises-based or cloud-based servers or workstations to a US Signal object-based storage architecture, local storage, and/or a network share.
Is BaaS a do-it-yourself or managed service?
BaaS is offered both as a manage-it-yourself service and as a fully managed service.
How does the manage-it-yourself and fully managed BaaS solutions differ?
The services are basically the same. However, with the fully managed option, US Signal provides:
- Agent installation and upgrades
- Backup job creation or modifications
- Restoration of images and files/folders to source
- Monitoring of backup plan success and failure activity
- Remediation of backup agent software issues
- Monthly touch point and quarterly business reviews
- Other services as noted in the service contract
Are there any limitations on what can be backed up
BaaS supports backups of virtually any source machine platform: physical or virtual, Windows, Mac or Linux, or VMware – Hyper-V – XenServer hypervisors. This provides a nearly limitless opportunity to target any customer and their environment. In addition, it can back up Office 365 including Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive.
However, US Signal’s BaaS doesn’t support SQL 2008 or Server 2008.
Does the service require installation or software?
Yes. BaaS uses agent-based software, so the “agent” is installed on all machines (servers) that a customer wants to use in the backup process. The software can also be installed as agentless for virtualized VMware environments. In this case, the software gets installed on a VM in the customer environment and orchestrates the population of all the VMs in the environment automatically. Data restores, in either case, can be done at the image and/or file level(s).
Are there any agent compatibility issues?
US Signal’s BaaS solution is based on Acronis’ Backup Cloud with Acronis Backup Advanced. If a customer currently uses an enterprise Acronis solution there will be a conflict between the client agents as two Acronis agents can’t be installed next to each other on the same machine. There are no known conflicts with other 3rd party agents.
Are there any connectivity requirements?
The only connectivity requirements are access to the Internet and allowing traffic to specific TCP ports that are utilized for backup operations.
What kind of security is included in BaaS?
All data that is transmitted from the client machine to the US Signal cloud is transmitted over SSL encryption. Additionally, customers have the ability to enable AES-256 key encryption within a backup plan. This encrypts the backup before leaving the source server, providing encryption in transit and at rest on US Signal storage. Any restore of AES-256 encrypted data requires that the customer-entered key is provided before access is granted.
Is the solution PCI DSS or HIPAA compliant?
US Signal’s BaaS solution is built using HIPAA and PCI security standards, so it may be able to help customers achieve certain compliance requirements.
How is BaaS Priced?
BaaS is billed with a usage-based model. Customers can either pay only for what they use, and are billed for the amount of GB of storage used. Or they can purchase a minimum data set on term. In this case, if the customer’s usage is below the minimum they’re charged the minimum monthly recurring charge. If it’s higher, they’re charged for the actual GB used. Local storage doesn’t count towards the minimum commitment calculation. Note: Customers are paying for used space after compression.