IronClad FAQ's

What do you mean when you say IronClad is a "managed service"?

Epic monitors your backups for you on a 24x7 basis from our network operations center. If a problem develops with a backup we remote into the IronClad appliance and / or work with our onsite contact to resolve the issue and get you back up and running. We make sure you are getting a good backup.

What is the IronClad Appliance and what does it do?

The IronClad Appliance is a self contained piece of hardware that we will place in your office as part of the service. It does not cost you anything and there are no capital outlays for you unless it is lost, stolen or damaged.

How do I know that my data is safe?

Separate from Epic's monitoring efforts, we remote into your IronClad appliance each month and perform a test restore of your data to make sure it is truly available. At that same time we also send you a written report each month on the success / fail rate of your backups. When we say 99.9% success rate, we mean it!

Do I have to store my data offsite?

Absolutely not. IronClad can be used only as an in house disaster recovery solution and we have some clients that use it just for its virtual server capabilities. That being said, we strongly encourage every business to maintain offsite copies of their data in some form or fashion. If you do not use our offsite storage, we can provide you with a replacement Appliance should yours be lost in a disaster, but it would not contain any data.

If I choose offsite backup, where is my data being stored?

IronClad's Offsite Data Centers are a pair of Tier 1 facilities located in separate parts of the country. These facilities are state-of-the-art, hardened co-location facilities with redundant power supplies, conditioned power, backup generators, and redundant high-speed Internet connections from multiple providers with automatic failover. Our equipment within each facility is also redundant and built upon state of the art Cisco Firewalls and Switches. Both Data Centers maintain an encrypted and secure copy of your Offsite Data.

Is my offsite data secure?

IronClad encrypts your data with an AES 256-bit encryption key before storing it on the IronClad Appliance. The encryption key is based upon a pass-phrase selected by the client and once applied it cannot be retrieved. No one in the Data Center or elsewhere can see your data without it. Additionally, the encrypted data is sent to the Offsite Data Centers through encrypted HTTPS tunnels – double encryption!

What are my restore points?

IronClad takes a snapshot of your data every 15 minutes on a 24x7 basis. These 15 minute incremental backups are consolidated each day to form a "daily backup". Daily backups are consolidated into weekly backups and weekly backups into monthly backups. You can restore to any of the 15 minute backups for 2 days; any daily backup for 2 weeks; any weekly backup for 5 weeks, and any monthly backup for the term of the service contract. The optional Offsite Data Centers retain only the last daily backup (unless you also sign-up for our offsite Archival Storage service).

Are incremental backups reliable?

IronClad is based upon a highly reliable incremental backup technology. We start with a "base image" for each server and then take incremental, block-level "snapshots" of data as it changes. Because we roll the incremental up into super incrementals to reduce the number of backups in a chain. On top of that, we use error detection and correction and we monitor the entire process to ensure success. Last we test the recovery capability on a monthly basis to ensure complete success.

How does the virtual server feature work?

IronClad can use any Restore Point as the basis for launching into virtual server mode. This means that should one or more servers fail, IronClad can assume its name and function as a "virtual server" within about 20 minutes. The virtual server can run the same applications as the real server, because it is literally a copy of the original server – just running on the IronClad appliance.