CloudBerry Backup Server Edition is a backup software for Windows 2003 and 2008 that uses cloud based storage as the destination for data. You purchase the software from CloudBerry, your storage from Amazon S3, Windows Azure, or other provider, and you are off and running with a full backup solution.

Features:

CloudBerry Backup Server Edition supports all the things you would expect in a true enterprise class backup solution, including:

• Block-level copies
• Support for backing up open files (using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service)
• Encryption
• Compression
• Configurable versioning
• Scheduled and on-demand backups
• Real-time backups
• Windows Event Logging
• CLI and API support

Ease of Use:

CloudBerry Backup installs as a Windows service, with an easy to use administrative console that you can use to configure the software, schedule backups, perform on-demand backups, perform restores, etc.

 
 
 
With a clean and easy to navigate tabbed interface, the admin console is crisp and easy to navigate, without too much jumbled into one screen. You can use the wizards to create scheduled or one-time tasks, or dive into the advanced settings to configure it yourself. Options for compression will help save you bandwidth and storage costs, while encryption adds additional protection to your data stored in the cloud.

Managed Hosting Providers

If you are a Managed Service Provider turn to CloudBerry Managed Backup Service, which is based on the very same technology as CloudBerry Backup and comes with a control panel. Using the control panel you can centrally manage and monitor backup processes across multiple computers, provision storage and users and remotely deploy configuration. Furthermore while the standalone version of CloudBerry Backup requires users to sign up with Amazon directly, the managed version allows you to store all customer data under a single centrally managed S3 account and provide your customers with individual accounts that are managed and billed directly by you. Last but not least service providers get a white label version so that they can offer the software under their own brand.  Learn more about the
 

Needs improvement:

Backup status shows in chunks of 1000 files. While I get that they do this, it is still somewhat disconcerting to have a directory structure with 10,000+ files and not be able to see how many are left unless you count the 1,000  file groups as they go by. Hopefully they will show full file counts in the next release.
 

Pricing:

CloudBerry Backup Server Edition lists on their website at US $79.99 per server for the first year, plus the cost of storage on your platform of choice. After the first year you can purchase maintenance for 20% per year. There’s also a desktop version available for $29.99 per computer. You do need to factor in the costs of your storage. Amazon S3, Windows Azure, Google Storage, Greenqloud, Haylix, Rackspace, and other means you can use your existing cloud storage provider or shop for the most economical one for your needs.
 

Value for Money:

With the costs of tapes, tape drives, and offsite storage continuing to climb, companies would do well to consider a cloud based backup system. CloudBerry Backup Server Edition has the features, capabilities, and the destination storage options to make this a real contender for a company’s backup solution. The cost for a server based backup is negligible, and while S3 storage costs are not insignificant, when you compare those costs to what it takes to maintain a library of tapes with offsite storage, and then realize you will not incur additional costs (or delays) in getting off site tapes brought back to restore needed data, this goes from an interesting to an appealing solution very quickly.
 

Verdict:

I want this. You want this. CloudBerry Backup Server Edition means never having to sign a courier’s slip again, never having to wait for tapes to be delivered while a system is down, and these are both things that make an admin’s life easier. CloudBerry has a 15 day free trial, and easy to follow instructions for setting things up with S3 so you can take it for a spin. Spend an afternoon trying the product out. It will be time well spent.