The issue of network neutrality is not just a problem for ISPs and consumers, it affects the very fabric of how future servers, system software and application software must be designed to reduce Internet congestion and increased connection fees. Backup and restore procedures as well must change before progress can be made moving forward.
With the battle of network neutrality issues continuing to make headlines, a related issue affecting the outcome is often ignored. What can we do to reduce unnecessary congestion on the Internet? Each day, the average company is wasting tons of bandwidth and paying for backup space they do not need. An example would be large content and price files. You think nothing of it as you download these files to your network. However, prices change frequently and if each time your suppliers name files differently to show file dates, you end up with multiple large files that add up. While price/content files alone will unlikely be enough to exceed your backup limit and incur additional charges, over time large documents can waste a surprising amount of space. If the backup becomes too cumbersome, there is a very strong chance the restore will fail.
For large websites like OfficeSalesUSA.com, several dozen files are combined just to update the product file. Add to this system software, product images, application programming interfaces, etc. and you have an enormous backup that you can only hope reaches the cloud overnight before the next business day let alone backup begins.
You might think the solution is to just delete these old files but if your backup still retains those files in an archive, you will continue to pay more unnecessarily. Some backup utilities will allow you to remove files from archives. Unfortunately, the same services will often encourage you to retain those obsolete files anyways just in case you find you need them later. This may be the wiser move but the cost sometimes exceeds the benefit especially when you consider that you can put unlikely to be needed again files on auxiliary media like recordable CDs, DVDs or flash drives without having to pay exorbitant fees.
With ever increasing competition in cloud storage services, savvy backup services will offer their customers more economical plans. Shopping the competition may actually reveal even cheaper plans but that only works if you bother to take the time to check out the competition.
Even more wasteful are full server backups which often exceed 200 gigabytes (compressed) for a web server backup. The most ridiculous part is that these backups are so large that it is unpractical to test the backup. Why are they so large? Regardless of whether you use it all or not, a full server backup must include every single program on that server. Needless to say, this system is quite wasteful both in bandwidth and processing time. A backup standard to restore just the settings of each program (Apache, cPanel, MySQL, firewall, etc.) plus the customer's website data and scripts would actually be more advantageous and could be installed theoretically faster on a new server that already has all the needed programs pre-installed. In fact, if just the critical components were backed up, a full restore to a more powerful server could be performed in under an hour!
Although it is usually possible to choose just the features you wish to backup, this system fails to deliver a coordinated effort among software vendors to archive only what is really needed (user setups and company files) leading to the necessity to back up everything including programs you never even used. Why should anyone for instance have to backup firewall software when it is really just malicious IP addresses you care about retaining? The actual firewall software could already be stored on an emergency backup server ready to go if needed. A simple extension to cPanel or competitor product could then import the IP list to block. A more intelligent solution to backups and restores like this would set apart the competition as the future of server software in particular cannot continue to ignore this issue. Likewise, application software like word processing, spreadsheets, etc. could also be pre-installed on internal networks to avoid backing up what often amounts to bloatware. Until a better standard is developed that allows servers to be successfully backed up/restored by just capturing user configurations, the corporate database and other proprietary components (like PHP scripts or application documents), the status quo will prevail and consumers will pay the price for an inefficient system that ultimately drives Internet costs up for everyone.
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