Please see our current backup policy for all solutions deployed from to 2024.

This document outlines which services are included in Pipe Ten’s backup services, including the default frequency, retention and any associated restore costs.

Pipe Ten’s main backup software provider is R1Soft Server Backup Enterprise. Providing fast, affordable, multi-platform and reliable Continuous Data Protection and point in time recovery for your important data. Full documentation and information on its capabilities can be found within the providers wiki or on request from the Pipe Ten support team.

Every possible care is taken to ensure the availability and validity of Pipe Ten’s backup service but it is not guaranteed.

Pipe Ten strongly recommends and encourages customers maintain their own copies/backups irrespective of service level.

All backups​ are by default stored to physically redundant, secure and remote data centre facility, stored encrypted at rest using approved secure techniques. These facilities and their capabilities are described on the Technical Infrastructure page.

Definitions:

• Full = Data retained as part of backup includes all data; typically file, database, operating system and software configurations.
• Config Only = Data retained only relates to the configuration and settings which define the service and not the data contained within the service itself.
• Hardware Failure = When a failure occurs as result of hardware or other fault within Pipe Ten’s control.
• Customer Failure = When a failure occurs as result of customer actions outside of Pipe Ten’s control.
• Per Incident = Per requested restore for a particular data to be restore for a particular time period.
• £ INC = Backup and/or Restore service is provided as part of the service cost.
• £ PAID = Backup and/or Restore service is an optional paid-for service on request in addition to the service cost.
• £ N/A = Backups are not available, typically for customer related events on a shared service where the complexity of restoring individual customers exceeds reasonable limits.#

Scheduling & Retention

Unless otherwise requested, backup policies will be configured as per the tables listed below.

Legacy Paid Backup

Legacy Shared Backup

Backup/Restore Testing

Unless explicitly requested Pipe Ten does not test the ability to restore from backup for every single individual customer or server.

Our customers frequently ask for backup restores which helps tests the methods, we otherwise perform specific restore testing where:

• Software/method in use differs from the norm.
• Major change of operating system version.
• Major change of backup software version.
• Significant change to network infrastructure.
• Significant change to associated software (eg. firewalling or anti-virus methods).
• During our own DR/BCP testing.
• Explicit request by customer.

Legacy Pricing

Licensing

Licensing is billed monthly in retrospect at the rates outlined below. Each host/server/OS requiring backups must run the supplied backup agent software. The backup agent software is billable on a per operating system basis at £ 10 per month.

Storage Calculations

A full image of the server is taken, compressed and stored. Subsequent incremental backups store compressed block level deltas/differences between recovery points. Data is compressed using zlib-high and compression ratios of 2:1 can be achieved depending on the data content. Total storage costs can both increase and decrease based on the size of data on server, the rate of data change, the compressibility of the type of data, backup frequency and backup retention.

Storage Costs

The total size of backup data residing on the backup services disks at the time of monthly billing will be charged at the following rates:

• < 512GB Stored at £ 0.50 per GB
• >= 512GB & < 2048GB at £ 0.30 per GB
• >= 2TB & <10TB at £ 0.20 per GB
• >= 10TB at £ 0.10 per GB

Included Managed Services

• Fully managed with complete support.
• Installation, updating & monitoring of backup agent software.
• Backup agent software licensing key.
• Monitoring & response to backup failure in event of failure.

Cost Examples

a) A customer with a fully managed single cloud server, will likely have their databases on the shared server and thus inclusive of backup, likewise for email and control panel and stores 35GB of infrequently FTP data with 10GB of Operating System data. The customer should expect costs of £ 10 in backup licensing and storage costs of £ 11.25 (ratio of 2:1 on 45GB is 22.5GB at £ 0.50 per GB, plus changes of 10% of less), or a total monthly of around £ 21.25+VAT

b) A customer with a fully managed physical server, will likely have their databases also on the same physical server so likely does require backup and stores 140GB of frequently changing FTP and DB data with 10GB of Operating System data. The customer should expect costs of £ 10 in backup licensing and storage costs of £ 75 (ration of 2:1 plus changes of 90% or more), or a total monthly of around £ 85+VAT

c) A customer with a XenServer, running two virtual machines of around 35GB each infrequently changing user FTP data and 10GB each Operating System data. The customer should expect costs of 2 x £ 10 in backup licensing and storage costs of 2 x £ 11.25 (as outlined in example (a)), or a total monthly of around £ 42.50.

Reducing Costs

Pipe Ten takes the approach that your backups should be configured so to be as safe and recoverable in the event of a disaster as possible and as such our backups by default are configured for good/long retention and to a remote data center. If however your budget doesn’t stretch to the best we understand and recommend these tips to save storage and cost:

• Look to see if you are storing any data which could not be archived/removed.
• Tell us if you would like us to exclude any particular location for which backups are not required.
• Consider impact and savings of reducing backup frequency or retention and contact us

Last changed: 2024/05/23 by Carl Heaton

Classification: Public
Last saved: 2024/05/23 at 11:45 by Carl