Online storage service providers work by downloading software agents onto application servers in a customer company and then performing an initial backup of systems. That process can take 12 to 15 hours or more, depending on the size of the company and the amount of data it has.

After that, incremental backups are performed daily. Alternatively, as data changes, snapshots of changes are taken and transmitted in small packets over virtual private networks to the backup provider's data center.

Restoration of data normally takes only minutes, users and analysts say.

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