6 June 2006, Singapore -- Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel) today announced the launch of Offsite Backup & Restore (OBR), a new service that allows users to access their office data securely from anywhere using a broadband connection.

 

Currently, many workers and executives are cut off from critical files and data stored in their workstations or corporate servers once they work from home, overseas or other locations outside their offices.    

 

The new service allows users to access their office data – documents, spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations etc. – as if they were at their own workstations.   OBR stores data in depositories at Singtel’s secure EXPAN data centres.  These online documents can be easily retrieved or uploaded any time from any computer with broadband connection to the Internet. 

 

OBR will benefit users working at remote sites or who need constant and immediate access to their data.   Companies will also find it useful to cope with emergency situations, including epidemics, computer-virus attacks and hard-disk crashes.

 

Mr Wong Soon Nam, Singtel’s Vice President of Business Marketing, said: “With the recent bird flu threat and the need for people and businesses to be prepared for any eventuality, OBR enables people to continue operating their businesses even if their offices are closed or under quarantine.

 

“This service is also well-suited for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) which do not have the resources to set up their own remote backup systems.   With OBR, SMBs can expect all the benefits of signing up with a managed service.”

 

Through an easy-to-use interface, OBR users can select the files they wish to store.   These data files are then compressed, encrypted for confidentiality, and sent through the Internet to Singtel EXPAN – in seconds. 

 

OBR also adopts ‘differential backup technology’ as a standard feature.   After saving a backup file for the first time, all subsequent backups of the same file are performed on an incremental basis.  This means that only the updated parts of a file are sent to the depository.  This saves time especially for large files like pictures and presentations.

 

Mr Wong said: “With the threat of virus attacks, hard-disk crashes, accidental erasures and site mishaps, OBR becomes an important service to help business users back up critical data effectively and effortlessly.”

 

 

Note to editors:

 

With OBR, SMBs enjoy a cost-efficient data service.   For example, assuming everyone needs to store 5GB of data, a company with ten employees needs only to spend $235 on OBR each month.  This works out to less than 80 cents per employee per day.