New Offsite "Cloud" Backup Feature For Extra Security

The data stored in a POS system for florists is very valuable. Think about it – florists commonly pay thousands, if not tens of thousands, for just the customer lists of shops that go out of business, and the complete set of data for a working store is so much more valuable than that. People, order history, accounts receivable balances, reports... it is almost essential to the operation of the flower shop.

Backups or safe copies of that data are important. Without backups there is no way to recover from the loss of the primary data file, and that data is vulnerable. A problem with the computer – like a virus, hard drive failure, etc. can mean that the data is lost forever. If the machine is stolen, or damaged in a fire or flood, the data is lost forever.

This is when backups can save the day. If the primary data file is lost the florist can continue working from a backup copy. At least they can if a backup copy survives...

This is why the location of backups are so critical! Local backups, backups that are created and saved to the same computer as the primary data file, are fast and easy to create but they provide little real security. All of the problems described above would destroy the backups as well as the primary data file.

The solution is secure offsite storage. As long as backups exist inside the store or, worse, on the same machine as the primary data file, they will be vulnerable to the same problems. A better plan is to store the backups offsite, on a secure server inside a secure data center (what is coming to be known as "the cloud"). Here the backups are safe from whatever calamities might befall the store.

FloristWare is pleased to announce that this ability is part of our latest release, FloristWare v3.0. This new version allows you to specify the location of, and credentials for, an offsite cloud server. Then, each day as part of the maintenance routine, FloristWare will compress and send a copy of the valuable data to that server.

Of course most florists don't have access to a secure cloud server so we are providing one. All FloristWare users can store their backups on our secure cloud servers free of charge. This is a valuable safety-net for our clients and we're happy to provide it.