Open Source Backup Systems for SMEs

Information and data is the dominant value for today´s day-to-day corporate business, and its importance is still growing in this digital era and with the explosion in use of social media in recent years. However, ensure an effective and efficient security of data is largely neglected even if most companies assume that the corruption or loses of their data will be disastrous and a “life-threatening” situation, pointing the lack of financial resources for not assuring more proactive security measures. Backup systems are a precious resource, since its aim to recover data after its loss – data deletion or corrupted, and recover data from an earlier time. Open source represent a unique opportunity to save precious financial resources, especially for SMEs. In this paper, we made a comparison of Backup Open Source Systems features, evaluating if these tools are a viable alternative to the Proprietary software. The conclusions are positive. Bacula and Amanda, two of the three software systems reviewed, proved to be very comprehensive backup systems and real options for small companies and organizations.