Rock Solid Backup provides data protection

“The gas tank was only a foot from the building’s transformer and its power feed. I literally came within 12 inches of losing my whole operation, and it got me started thinking about how secure my business really was,” Thompson said. “As it was, we had to get a hold of City Utilities and electricians that would work all night, and by the next morning we had power restored, but what if the car had exploded?”

After researching, Thompson learned that most businesses that experience a cataclysmic failure typically don’t last more than one or two years. He didn’t want that to happen to ProTel.

“I wondered about our data backups,” he said. “We would have lost all our customer records and software, so I began looking for a better way to secure our systems.”

The result is Rock Solid Backup, an outgrowth of ProTel, which has evolved from providing telephone systems and computer networks into an Internet service provider.

“We’re technology-oriented toward our customers and provide field technicians for support. We primarily handled ISP, and when broadband began to grow, we needed a way to diversify our customer services,” Thompson said. “We can use the same facilities and infrastructure as our dial-up and broadband services.”

Despite the relatively low probability of catastrophic events such as fires or tornadoes, Thompson said that any business needs to reliably back up its data.

“Viruses are all over the Internet, and some of them can easily destroy records,” he said. “Even if a company has off-site tape backups, statistics tend to show that when the time comes, they’re not completely reliable. Hurricane Katrina is a good example of this, where business owners stored tapes at home but lost everything to flooding.”

But Springfield, Thompson said, is lucky, in that the city is home to Springfield Underground, where Rock Solid rents space for its backup servers.

“It’s a secure facility, with 100 percent guaranteed uptime on its power supply, so we’re not worried about tornadoes or fire,” he said.

Rock Solid has several service packages for varying fees.

Managed service, which may be residential or commercial, includes technicians to consult and install the first customer backup.

“They’ll look at the customer’s system and can help decide what databases and documents are critical; then we back up that information,” Thompson said. “The service comes with an encryption key, so we actually can’t look at a client’s data after it’s compressed and downloaded. Only customers can recover backed-up data.”

The service has nightly automated backup and will save only information that has changed since the previous night’s update. Clients receive e-mail confirmation of the backup and any data that was added.

One of Thompson’s managed business clients is Theresa Pollard, executive director of Springfield’s Best.

Thompson was host of a recent Springfield’s Best mixer at Rock Solid’s location.

“It was just like a James Bond film,” Pollard said. “I’m pretty much a one-woman band, constantly in and out of the office, and this is a great way to make sure that my e-mail and accounting information is backed-up automatically. I especially appreciate the security and convenience of having encrypted data and the peace of mind of not worrying about anything.”

But Rock Solid’s services can be appealing to nonbusiness customers as well, one of whom is LaShonda Grimm.

Grimm, a full-time student at Ozarks Technical Community College studying computer information technology, learned about Rock Solid from a co-worker.

“In the past, my computer has crashed twice and I’ve lost everything,” Grimm said, noting that using Rock Solid Backup helps ensure that she doesn’t lose any important assignments.

Unmanaged service, Thompson said, is geared toward larger systems.

“Perhaps they have their own IT staff to manage software and packages,” Thompson said. “For us it’s pretty much hands off, where the client has more control.”

The company also offers collocation services for customers whose systems are too large for Rock Solid’s servers. “They install their server in our facility and use the backup service directly connected to their machines,” Thompson said.

Setup for managed accounts is $129, with data storage for all computers less than 250 megabytes priced at $17.50 monthly. Setup for unmanaged accounts is $65, with data storage for all computers below 250 megabytes priced at $12.50 monthly. For collocation service, space charges begin at $65 a month.