| Home > Business Support
Services > Remote Backup > Frequently Asked Questions |
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| 1. What is FastBIT
technology? |
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| FastBIT is the most effective
incremental backup and storage technology available
today. It uses a complex algorithm to precisely identify
the changes that have been made to any type of file
since the last backup. These changes are transmitted
to the Touchcomms DAT Server, requiring minimal bandwidth.
Once the server receives these changes, it can combine
them with the previous backup to form an identical copy
of your current file. In order to perform a FastBIT
backup, the software has to backup the files 3 times:
the first backup is a full, the next backup will perform
an incremental, and the third performs the first FastBIT
backup. |
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| 2. Why is FastBIT
important to me? |
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If you are an end-user, the efficiency
of using FastBIT for data backup and storage will dramatically
reduce the time required to backup your data from any
network location, include slow dialup connections.
If you are the server administrator, FastBIT will minimize
your overall bandwidth utilization for a large installed
base. FastBIT will also provide the most cost-effective
method of storing ongoing file histories for every user.
FastBIT backups can be 15 times smaller than the nearest
competitor. That means Touchcomms will only need 10
Gigabytes for user data that would need up to 150 Gigabytes
of data storage using competitive online data storage
software for the same amount of user data. |
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| 3. What encryption
does Touchcomms DAT use? |
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| All data is stored in an encrypted
format and all communications between the client and
server are encrypted. Users can choose between DES,
Triple-DES and Blowfish encryption algorithms. The software
is available with exportable levels of encryption for
International customers. |
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| 4. What platforms
does Touchcomms DAT support? |
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| Touchcomms includes client software.
The client software can be installed on any Windows
95, 98, Me, NT, 2000 or XP computer. The Touchcomms
Client software communicates to the Touchcomms Server
using the TCP/IP protocol. |
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| 5. Can I backup
other platforms with my Touchcomms DAT Client software? |
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| Touchcomms Client software will
only run natively on Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000
and XP. If you want to backup computers with other operating
systems, it is possible. Here's how… Since Touchcomms
Client supports mapped network drives and the Network
Neighborhood, it can backup data from any computer that
is accessible via the network. A single Touchcomms
Client can backup the local computer and any number
of local or remote network computers using Touchcomms'
powerful user interface. |
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| 6. Can
I test the online backup software before I buy it? |
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| Please send an e-mail to our sales
department at sales@Touchcomms.com to receive a product
information kit. |
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| 7. Do you have
a chart for Bandwidth Requirements? |
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It's very difficult to analyze
those requirements because of all the variables added
by FastBIT. However, the basic formula is pretty simple:
Take the expected size, in MB's, of the data you might
see in a day, divide it by the amount of seconds in
the day and divide that number by 8 to obtain MB/Sec
Bandwidth. This will result in the required bandwidth
(MB/Sec) needed to sustain 100% load throughout the
day. Example: Let's say we have 500 users sending us
an average of 600MB per month then the formula follows:
600MB * 500Users = 300000MB (300GB) / 30days (per month)
= 10000MB Per Day (10GB) / 86400seconds (1 day) = 115.74Kb/sec
* 8 (to convert to MB/Sec) = .93MB/Sec or about 61%
of a full T1
Of course, this assumes that you have full saturation
throughout the day, which isn't going to happen. It
typically gets a bit peaky around noonish and around
midnight, so to accommodate the mean, you should probably
have a 30% overhead, which in the above case, would
translate to just about a full T1 (1.5MB/Sec). |
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