Cloud storage is a powerful business tool when used correctly. This post looks at five ways that cloud storage can benefit your business – making you more productive and more secure.

1. Simple, secure backups
Cloud storage services make secure backups very simple – with BackupBob’s unlimited storage space and Desktop Sync Software, you can simply right click on any folder on a PC or server and select “Add to BackupBob”. The folder is then monitored constantly and any new documents or changed documents are backed up off-site on BackupBob’s secure servers. It’s a completely effortless process – no need to rely on staff to regularly rotate backup tapes or take them home.

If you need to restore a file later for any reason, you can just log into BackupBob’s web portal, find the file and click on download – there’s no need to battle through backup tapes to find the correct file in an incremental sequence.

2. Infinite archiving of data
Businesses can collect massive amounts of data – much of it remains unused and ends up being deleted. However every business has situations where this old data suddenly becomes essential, long after it has been removed. With cloud storage you can now keep your archived data for as long as you want – whether its log files, RAW multimedia or analytics and reporting data, just uploading it to your BackupBob unlimited storage space lets you keep it and forget it until you really need it.

BackupBob’s Desktop Sync software makes it very easy to get this archive data online without taking up any hard drive space, but BackupBob even has unlimited FTP access which lets you upload your files from any server anywhere.

3. Easy access collaboration on the move
Shared network drives and VPN connections are great for a mobile workforce up to an extent, but they’re far from perfect. They’re highly technical to set up and configure, they often rely on a network connection to work correctly, and they require local storage infrastructure to keep them going. BackupBob makes this process really easy – one single BackupBob Pro account can be shared across unlimited PCs, and the files you put on your BackupBob are synchronised between every computer. As well as being stored online, all of the files are cached locally on every PC too, so your team can view and edit the documents even when they’re not online. The files are then updated as soon as connectivity is restored.

Even more importantly, documents can be accessed from literally anywhere. BackupBob provides a web portal so mobile workers can log in using a web browser even if they don’t have BackupBob installed. The documents can be downloaded from the web portal, or even viewed and edited directly from the browser using BackupBob’s built in web applications. BackupBob has a dedicated web portal for mobile devices too, letting you access all of your files on your phone.

4. Version history
Have you ever changed a file and then realised that you want to go back to the previous version? With BackupBob you can. BackupBob keeps every version of each document that you work on, so that if you ever want to revert to a historical copy (or even just review an old version) you can with one click.

5. Simple sharing with third parties
If you work with large files you’ll know that sharing those files with clients, suppliers or partners can be very tricky. BackupBob makes this process so easy – any file or folder on your online storage space can be shared with one click. You can share the file publically so that anyone in the world can access it, or you can share privately by providing the e-mail address of the person you want to share with. That person is set up with their own completely free BackupBob account that they can use to securely access the files you’ve shared with them. No more do you have to worry about manually uploading your documents to your own FTP space, or posting CDs, DVDs and memory sticks to clients.

These days many of us have tens or hundreds of passwords to remember: for work, for home, for social networks, for banking, for email, and even for BackupBob! Keeping track of all of these passwords can be hard work, and many users resort to using the same password everywhere (which means that if one site is hacked then all of your services are vulnerable), or making their passwords simple and memorable (which probably means that they’re easy to guess). But using a strong and unique password for every site means you have to have somewhere to write them down – and that’s where password managers come in.

A password manager is a piece of software that securely stores all of your passwords in one place. This means that you can access your passwords at any time, and it allows you to use more complicated passwords that are unique to each service you access – one password for your email, one password for Facebook, and one password for your online banking for example. Many password managers will automatically generate long and complicated passwords for you, which are extremely difficult to crack. As long as your password manager stays secure then all of your passwords stay safe – if one of the services that you use is hacked, then only that service is compromised and all of the other accounts you have elsewhere are still safe.

Password managers are not for everybody – some security experts point out that you’re putting all of your eggs in one basket and that if your password manager is hacked then suddenly everything is opened up. And it is possible to break into any password manager using brute force or by installing spyware on your computer to monitor your keystrokes. But most experts agree that it is more secure to manage your passwords this way than use weak keys or share the same password between many services – your one password file is far less likely to be targeted by a hacker than the entire user list at Gawker for example.

A very popular and easy to use password manager is the open source KeePass Password Safe for Windows. Not only is this software free, it’s extremely lightweight – you can even run the entire program from a memory stick. And with its sister project KeePassX providing compatibility with Mac and Linux PCs, and versions available for the iPhone/iPad and Android devices, it’s completely portable – so you can use it to access your passwords almost anywhere you go. KeePass uses powerful AES encryption to encrypt your passwords into a simple file – called a KDB file – which you can keep anywhere.

The only challenge with KeePass is keeping your password file up to date on all of your devices, and that’s where your BobDrive Sync comes in! Simply save the KDB file onto your network drive and it’s synced between all of your computers – meaning that you can access the same password database wherever you are – even on your iPhone:

You can even put Portable KeePass onto your BobDrive so that you can run KeePass from any computer you’re using, even if it’s not yours – just make sure you trust the PC you’re running it on.

So with BackupBob and KeePass together you can make your online life far more secure without sacrificing the convenience of being able to access all of your services wherever you go. Maybe you have an alternative solution, or you use a different password manager. If so, let us know in the comments below!