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I need some advice:

Are there any reputable web hosting server side tools that can we can install to help us manage ftp access and data acquisition, much like Filezilla Server?

We are a small business of 5 guys that require a data backup solution. We want to use our web hosting server as offsite storage since we have unlimited storage. However, with our web hosting server we can't manage access rights as granular as we would like, such as group, users, speed limits, ip allow, ip block and so forth. This will be a problem as we grow.

For client side software we tried CloudBerry. But since CB doesn't allow us, as group, store data in same folders this won't work. So we ended up mapping our PCs to the ftp account and then drop our files in folder to back them up. Simple, but works for us. Now we just need to solve server side problem.

We are using Godaddy Linux hosting by the way.

Sorry if this reads choppy. I’m dyslexic and having a bad dyslexic day. Thanks for your time.

BgreenDSI
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  • Most hosting providers frown upon using web hosting space for non-web facing data (as in, backups). I wouldn't do this to begin with. – Nathan C May 30 '13 at 15:08
  • What type of data/systems are you trying to backup? In my experience, rsync/ftp systems are unreliable. You have to spend too much time managing the backups rather than having them run. There are dedicated backups tools available for linux (we use Idera's solutions) that will automate this process -- and most importantly it will let you know when your backups fail. – jeffatrackaid May 30 '13 at 19:33

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Using your web host as a backup site is a Bad Idea -- forgetting the issues Nathan raised, web hosting is designed to host web sites (things that are available to the public - files anyone can download). You probably don't want this for the sensitive company data in your backups.
Mitigating this with .htaccess rules and such still leaves you in a situation where an accidental change to your website can make this data public. Also it means whoever is doing your website design/maintenance has access to the backup files which is definitely not an ideal situation.

What should you do instead?

There are dedicated backup and storage services available at reasonable cost.
Since you're already using a Unix based environment rsync.net and Tarsnap are both options I can strongly recommend (I have used the former for my personal and business backups for some time, and the latter is run by someone who I trust to Get It Right).

You can also roll your own backups if you are comfortable doing so. A solution using a Bacula server "in the cloud" (Amazon EC2 & EBS) can be an effective and reasonably priced option depending on the amount of data you're backing up.
If you exceed what can be reasonably done that way a local Bacula server that sends its data to rsync.net or a similar off-site storage service - this is what my current company does.
Bacula also has Windows clients in case your entire environment isn't *nix systems.

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voretaq7
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