CloudBank FAQs

• Do I really need an off-site backup?

  If you’re in a business that uses computers in any way, then yes – yes you do. There are all sorts of statistics floating around like, “43% of U.S. companies experiencing data disasters never re-open, and 29% close within 2 years”. The fact is, even if you backup locally, any sort of disaster that affects your place of business could put you out of business, no matter whether your insurance will replace the hardware.

• Where is my data stored?

  Your data will be stored in two locations, on servers hosted in secure data centres in Newcastle and Manchester. When you install and configure the service, your data will initially be backed up to the Newcastle facility. This will then be replicated down to the secondary server at the Manchester facility.

• What happens if your data centre blows up?

  If one of the data centres blows up (or becomes unusable for whatever reason) the secondary facility will be reconfigured to act as the primary location. This can be done in a matter of minutes and should result in a minimum of downtime.

• Is it secure?

  Yes – highly. All of your data can be encrypted using military strength (up to 448 bit) encryption with a password generated by you, the client. The data is encrypted before it leaves your computer, it is compressed and then transmitted over an SSL internet connection to our servers. No-one can access and decrypt your data without your password.

• Can you or anyone else access my data?

  No – as per above, even employees of Brownsman are unable to decrypt your data without being given details of your password. This is for reasons of compliance. Many regulatory authorities require that only certain authorised persons be able to access the data of specific organisations. Brownsman can keep a record of your password for you at a secure location should you require it, as part of the Disaster Recovery package.

• Do I have to restore the full backup? Or can I just restore specific files?

  You can restore whatever versions of whatever files you like, whenever you like. When you configure your backups you get the option of determining your retention policy. Certain types of business, for example those regulated by the Financial Services Authority, are required to keep versions of all files for up to 7 years. Using Cloudbank it is possible to specify this as your retention policy.

• If all my data is destroyed, is there help available to get our business back up and running?

  Of course there is. Brownsman can help to recover and restore your data. We can also help you define a Disaster Recovery policy at the outset, to ensure that any business downtime in minimised in the event of a disaster.

• Sounds interesting, but we’ve got several terabytes of data to backup. Surely an online backup service is not a practical solution for us?

  Oh but it is… We can help to get your online backup started, by taking an initial seed backup of your data to external drive, transferring this to our data centre and uploading it to the server manually. All your subsequent incremental backups would then continue over the internet.

• Why should we choose you to provide this service?

  There are many reasons, however the most obvious reasons are:

  • CloudBank lets you keep as many versions of each file as you like. Some of the cheaper services will only allow you to keep one version of each file.
  • CloudBank allows you to create a file retention policy suited to your business whereas other providers have no retention policy.
  • If our service doesn’t do what we say it will, you can have your money back. Certain other services conditions specify that “You acknowledge and agree that you should not rely on the Site, Content, Files and Services for any reason”. You can rely on our service.
  • CloudBank allows you to backup open files. A lot of the cheaper systems will not backup files that are in use. This is no good if you have files that you regularly use and need backed up that are open at the time of the backup.
  • Brownsman are there to help. Not only are we at the end of the phone but we can come out to help you resolve any issues or questions you might have, and also help with restoring the data in the event of a disaster.

If you’re FAQ isn’t listed here, then please contact us at or 0191 500 6353 and we’ll help in any way we can.