Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations Make offsite backup an onsite backup

I wonder if we could make the offsite backup also an onsite backup. The offsite backup would still be $250 annually while the onsite backup could be free. If you don't use offsite backup, then you will not be familiar with the process. But, basically, when you backup offsite using that feature, it first makes a compressed and encrypted file containing all databases. These are stored on the computer you back up from. So, when I back up to offsite, I not only get that backup, but I also get an encrypted one on a local workstation. So, you in effect get a backup. The other good feature of this would be for those who back up to thumb drives. It makes me nervous to consider NON-encrypted databases going back and forth on small thumb drives, but this way you would alleviate that problem. Unfortunately, you can't make the local backup if you haven't paid for a license for the offsite backup. Easy enough to change. Simply don't allow one access to the offsite backup site if they don't have a license.

Great idea, Bert.

I have paid for the offsite backup.

Pardon my ignorance, but are you saying that whenever I backup offsite, I am *already* simultaneously creating a local encrypted copy of my database?

If so, where is it located, and how do I unencrypt it if it becomes necessary later?

Brian,

Sorry, I didn't see this, because my request to make the notification a default will probably never happen. And, somehow, this one did not get checked.

First, be sure to do the offsite backup on a different PC than the main folder. This insures that the encrypted local copy is saved in the AC folder on the DIFFERENT computer as it does no good in the real folder.

When you get to the point of clicking on the offsite backup, make sure the check box under #3: Check this box to save the file in your Amazing Charts folder.

Every time you do an off site backup, you will see an encrypted file with the name of the business_OSBU_date of backup. Sometimes, the file is backed up in a temp folder, in which case playing around with it a bit can make it go to your AC folder. Yes, you can unencrypt it. Once you find them, I recommend changing the path to your local AC database and trying it out. Go to the same off site window, but click on the right tab to back up from the local copy. It will ask you for your off site serial number.

Bert:

I take you at your word that this is true, but why doesn't do any good to save it onto the main AC folder?

(Probably something obvious; apologies in advance).

Merry Christmas!

It is quite obvious, lol. I am assuming at a high level of confidence that you back up your Amazing Charts folder on the main computer which must have ALL of your data every night. So, if you let these backup files go in that folder, you are backing up those files, which would be fairly meaningless.

If something were to happen to that folder or that PC, I would think you would be much better off if all your databases were safely on another PC.

Well, right.

I was thinking in terms of your "thumb drive" idea.

If that encrypted file is already being created every night when I do my offsite backup, then those of us who have paid for offsite backup can already do what you're suggesting:

1. Do offsite backup.
2. Find that compressed and encrypted file you identified, save it to a thumb drive, and take it home with us.

But your suggestion is that Jon make it easy for all users to do this, which would seem to be a simple thing, as the difficult code is already written.

If this was incorporated as a feature, then I think the most elegant way to handle it would be to have an Encrypted Backup button under Administrative Options, with a couple of check-boxes for where you want it saved to.

One of them would allow you to select a path to a drive or folder to save that _OSBU_ file to a local file.

The other would be to the offsite upload. If you hadn't paid for the service, you would get an error message/advertisement for the service. I think this would increase Jon's revenue for offsite upload, because people would be confronted with the option more often.

That's something I didn't think of. Since you would always get to that point where you COULD have backed it up, it would be more likely that people would say, hey, I should go ahead and fork over the $250.

Of course, the other possibility would be to allow one to change the path of the autobackups when you use the AC tool to compress your databases. Now, you are compressing and fixing your databases every evening plus making backups. They wouldn't be encrypted, but they would be better than what we have now.