Corporate IT warms up to online backup services

Large businesses are looking more closely at online backup options as a way to ease systems administration headaches and avoid security concerns linked to physical backup procedures.

Analysts said they expect corporate interest in hosted backup systems to grow as major storage vendors enter the business and work to allay user concerns about pricing and bandwidth.

Walter Petruska, information security officer at the University of San Francisco (USF), said the upfront cost and the IT overhead needed to manage physical backup for 1,300 devices under his control prompted the school to move to a subscription-based hosted backup option.