The NFL organization, which had about 200GB of stored data, started out with a 500GB system at Amerivault and took an initial snapshot -- which took about a day -- and then shipped it to Waltham, Mass., to be loaded into the Amerivault data centers, Jankowski said. It was then shipped back to Baltimore, and every night any files that have been changed during the day get backed up to the Massachusetts facility, he said. The data is also mirrored to a facility in Illinois, he added.

So what's in that 200GB? Much of it is the same sort of data one would find in any corporation: Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server and Access data and financial systems, Jankowski said. The organization also has a number of custom applications for functions such as college scouting, pro scouting and game analysis.

In addition, because they track injuries, the team is required to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Jankowski said. In fact, the organization is about to install a firewall for HIPAA compliance, he said. Also, because fans buy their tickets with credit cards, the team's SQL Server-based credit card information must also be encrypted to comply with those privacy regulations, he said.

The Amerivault system is also helping with the compliance aspect because some compliance regulations require the team to have offsite backups, Jankowski said. Previously, the team used Symantec Corp.'s Backup Exec for backups, he said. The move to Amerivault "took care of a lot of things -- backups, offsite storage and disaster recovery if something happened to our building."

Pricing for the Amerivault system is on a per gigabyte basis and costs about US$3,000 per month, Jankowski said. While it's an expense they didn't have last year, it's also a comfort to know they're protected, he said.