16 posts tagged with "blogs"

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

What is National Clean Out Your Computer Day?​

National Clean Out Your Computer Day was started in 2000 as an initiative of the Institute for Business Technology and falls on the second Monday in February.

The event promotes taking time out of your day to do some basic housekeeping on your computer, such as backing up your computer, organizing your files and folders, updating software, and removing unused files.

Consider it an early start to spring cleaning. Just like any other cleaning or tidying up task, don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do it all at once, break it down into manageable chunks and just start with something easy, like deleting your folder of screenshots.

Before you delete any files, it’s a good idea to make sure you have a backup of your data, just in case!

And don’t forget about wiping the outside of your device, cleaning the screen and keyboard (say goodbye to fingerprints and keyboard crumbs).

Clean Out Your Computer Day for IT Providers & MSPs​

IT Providers and MSPs can use Clean Out Your Computer Day to remind end users to create positive digital habits and walk them through how to perform a digital declutter. Below are some tips to show your clients and end users how to observe Clean Out Your Computer Day.

How to Celebrate​

• Backup your computer, including files & folders, documents, and photos
• Organize your folders, documents, and bookmarks (close some of those dozens of internet browser tabs)
• Free up space by deleting or archiving files that you don’t need or don’t use
• Uninstall all the programs you no longer need or use
• Update software to the latest versions
• Tidy up your desktop and downloads folder (and delete all the screenshots and files you don’t need anymore)

Why is it Important?​

National #CleanOutYourComputerDay is another reminder to help us create good digital and cyber hygiene habits. Cleaning up and tidying our personal and work computers can help us:

• Keep organized – making everything easier to find which will ultimately save time over the coming year
• Make our computers run faster – by deleting unnecessary files and uninstalling unused applications
• Give us peace of mind – by making sure our important files are properly saved and backed up, either locally or to the cloud, or both.

Below is a checklist and some additional references and resources about Clean Out Your Computer Day.

More 2025 IT Holidays + Free Marketing Resources​

Check out our blog post on 2025 IT Holidays for more cybersecurity awareness days, and download our free marketing resources to help educate your end users about how they can stay safe in our digital world.

References:​

• https://nationaltoday.com/national-clean-out-your-computer-day/
• https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/clean-out-your-computer-day/
• https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-clean-out-your-computer-day-second-monday-in-february

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

What is Data Privacy Week?​

Each year the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) organizes Data Privacy Week to educate people about the importance of safeguarding personal data and ensuring online privacy and safety.

The goal of Data Privacy Week is to spread awareness about online privacy and reminding individuals that you have the power to manage your data.

Data Privacy Week for IT Providers & MSPs​

IT Providers and MSPs can use Data Privacy Week as an opportunity to teach your clients about their data privacy and to remind end users to double check the information they are sharing on their apps and devices.

We’ve put together some information and resources to help you educate your end users.

Why is Data Privacy Week Important?​

Data is collected everyday – from your computer, smartphone, smartwatch, and pretty much every other internet-connected device. All of your online activity generates a trail of data.

Data Privacy Week acts as a reminder to double check and update the settings on your apps, accounts and connected devices to decide how this data is collected and used.

Privacy Trends in Tech​

Even the tech titans like Apple are bowing to the importance of data privacy as evidenced by their 2020 decision to roll out the Apple App Tracking Transparency feature to iOS 14.5. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature allows users to choose whether an app can track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites for advertising targeting. The impact of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature upended the mobile ad industry, which largely relies on user data.

With the emergence of AI (artificial intelligence) and the ever-changing landscape of technology and cybersecurity, we expect to see more laws and regulations around data privacy, following the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 across Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2019 in the US.

But complying with regulations and relying on the tech industry to design better privacy controls isn’t enough. It’s important to proactively protect yourself, your clients and your company from unnecessary data collection.

Take Control of Your Data​

The 2025 theme for Data Privacy Week is ‘Take Control of your Data’. Here are some easy tips and reminders from the NCA to help you manage your data privacy:

• Know the trade-off between privacy and convenience – does each app or account need access to certain data (such as your contacts or photos or camera)?
• Adjust privacy settings to your comfort level. Audit your apps, accounts, and double check the privacy and security settings on your devices.
• Protect your data with several layers of security, including using secure passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Install updates – as annoying as is to take time to update your software, it is important because updates help patch security flaws, deploy bug fixes, add new features, and help keep your devices running smoothly.

More 2025 IT Holidays + Free Marketing Resources​

Check out our blog post on 2025 IT Holidays for more cybersecurity awareness days, and download our free marketing resources to help educate your end users about how they can stay safe in our digital world.

Below are some additional resources from the National Cybersecurity Alliance.

Resources:​

• What is Data Privacy And Why Should you Care?
• Data Privacy Week
• Take Control of Your Data
• Cybersecurity Predictions for 2025: Challenges and Opportunities

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

As we begin the new year, it’s a great time to look ahead and mark your calendar with key dates, including upcoming 2025 IT and cybersecurity holidays.

These holidays and awareness days are a fun opportunity to highlight and teach the importance of cybersecurity to your clients or end users, or show appreciation for your team.

Free Marketing Resources​

Short on time? Use our pre-written social media posts and our kit of re-brandable graphics to educate your end users throughout the year.

Download the marketing campaign-in-a-box here.

Don’t forget to add these dates to your calendar!

Data Privacy Week​

January 27-31, 2025​

The National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) organizes Data Privacy Week to spread awareness about the importance of safeguarding personal data and ensuring online data privacy and safety. Our data is collected everyday – from your computer, smartphone, smartwatch, and pretty much every other internet-connected device. You can check and update the settings on your apps and devices to decide how this data is collected and used.

#DataPrivacyWeek

References:

• https://staysafeonline.org/programs/data-privacy-week/

National Clean Out Your Computer Day​

February 10, 2025​

National Clean Out Your Computer Day was started in 2000 as an initiative of the Institute for Business Technology and falls on the second Monday in February. The event promotes taking time out of your day to do some basic housekeeping on your computer, such as organizing your files and folders, updating software, and removing unused files. Before you delete any files, it’s a good idea to make sure you have a backup of your data, just in case! Don’t forget about wiping the outside of your device, and cleaning the screen and keyboard.

#CleanOutYourComputerDay

References:

• https://nationaltoday.com/national-clean-out-your-computer-day/
• https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/clean-out-your-computer-day/
• https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/clean-out-your-computer-day
• https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-clean-out-your-computer-day-second-monday-in-february

World Backup Day​

March 31, 2025​

World Backup Day on March 31st is one of our favorite IT holidays on the calendar (for no specific reason). World Backup Day reminds us to backup and protect our data. In today’s digital age, data backup and data protection is critical for businesses and organisations to help protect against cyberattacks, ransomware, system crashes, human error, and more. Having a robust and secure backup solution, like Comet Backup, will help safeguard against these data loss threats.

#WorldBackupDay

References:

• https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/world-backup-day/
• https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/international/world-backup-day-march-31
• https://www.worldbackupday.com/en
• https://nationaltoday.com/world-backup-day/

World Password Day​

May 1, 2025​

World Password Day is celebrated annually on the first Thursday of May to encourage people to use stronger passwords and secure their online accounts. Strong passwords are important for protecting sensitive information and preventing unauthorized access. For another layer of protection you can also use two-factor authentication (2FA) to secure your accounts for better security.

#WorldPasswordDay

References:

• https://www.passwordday.org/
• https://nationaltoday.com/world-password-day/
• https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/password-day/
• https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/world-password-day-first-thursday-in-may

System Administrator Appreciation Day​

July 25, 2025​

System Administrator Appreciation Day (SysAdmin Day) honors IT professionals who work behind the scenes to keep our IT systems, networks, servers, and technology running smoothly at businesses and organizations across the world. Shout out to our everyday IT heroes!

#SysAdminDay

References:

• https://sysadminday.com/
• https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/system-administrator-appreciation-day/
• https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/system-administrator-appreciation-day-last-friday-in-july
• https://nationaltoday.com/system-administrator-appreciation-day/

IT Professionals Day​

September 16, 2025​

We celebrate IT Professionals Day on the third Tuesday of September to recognize the technical IT experts that make sure our systems run smoothly. Whether its desktops, laptops, mobile devices, printers, applications, servers, networks, databases or cybersecurity, IT professionals keep our businesses humming. IT Pro Day recognizes the critically important role of these technical experts.

#ITProDay

References:

• https://nationaltoday.com/national-it-professionals-day/
• https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-it-professionals-day-third-tuesday-in-september
• https://www.holidaycalendar.io/holiday/national-it-professionals-day

Cybersecurity Awareness Month​

October 1-31, 2025​

In October, Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an international initiative that educates everyone about online safety and empowers individuals and businesses to protect their data from cybercrime. Cybersecurity Awareness Month reminds everyone that there are simple, effective ways to keep yourself safe online, protect your personal and business data, and ultimately help secure our world.

#CybersecurityAwarenessMonth #SecureOurWorld

References:

• https://staysafeonline.org/programs/cybersecurity-awareness-month/
• https://www.cisa.gov/cybersecurity-awareness-month

Computer Security Day​

November 30, 2025​

Computer Security Day was first launched in 1988 by the Association for Computer Security. Since then, the way we use computers has changed. Today, we use computers to stay connected almost every day – working from home, shopping online, internet banking, streaming movies, social media, and more. Computer Security Day encourages individuals and businesses to adopt good virtual habits and be proactive in protecting your data in our modern digital world.

#ComputerSecurityDay

References:

• https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/computer-security-day
• https://nationaltoday.com/national-computer-security-day/
• https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/computer-security-day-november-30

National Cookie Day​

December 4, 2025​

While National Cookie Day is not necessarily a conventional IT awareness day, we like to celebrate it each year on December 4th as a reminder to clear your cache and cookies on your web browser. Clearing your cache and cookies can help improve your browser’s performance, protect your privacy by reducing tracking, and free up a little bit of space on your computer.

#NationalCookieDay

References:

• https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/cookie-day/

Be Proactive All Year Long​

No matter what time of the year, it’s always important to be proactive and take action to keep ourselves and our organizations safe by backing up data, securing accounts, using strong passwords, and having good cyber hygiene and habits.

If you are looking for a fast and secure backup solution, you can test drive Comet Backup with a 30-day FREE trial! Start running backups and restores in 15 minutes or less.

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

We’re back with the fifth edition of CometCon, this time a mini 3-day version of our company-wide internal conference. Twice a year, local and remote team members gather at Comet HQ for CometCon for team bonding, fun activities, presentations, and collaboration.

Here are some highlights of our end of year CometCon:

Speaker Series​

At each CometCon, team members from each department are welcome to lead a presentation or workshop. This time we had six different talks from the Marketing, Product, Developer, Software Testing, Sales, and Customer Success teams.

Sharing knowledge and insights cross-functionally is always a big part of CometCon. Many of the presentations focused on how we can improve the product and experience for our Comet Community.

In-Person Connection​

One of our favorite parts of CometCon is getting everyone together to hangout and connect throughout the week. While those of us at Comet HQ enjoy our hybrid model of working a few days in the office and a few days remote each week, it’s valuable for everyone to spend dedicated time together, especially for the fully remote team members.

During CometCon the dev teams can have their standup meetings in person, discuss and workshop ideas, and have water cooler chats (or in our case, coffee machine chat), things you can’t replicate as naturally over Slack. We believe important topics get surfaced and new ideas are sparked in a deeply human way when we gather together in person.

Team Activities (aka Mandatory Fun)​

It wouldn’t be CometCon without some fun team activities! We headed off-site to a local café for a mystery event lead by our General Manager, Josh. This team activity involved creative problem solving, brainstorming ideas, and teamwork.

Next, we headed over to a Battle Axe Throwing spot for a bit of fun. We channeled our inner Viking / lumberjack and teamed up for a few games. Flannel was worn. Axes were thrown. Fun was had by everyone.

End of Year Celebration & Prize Giving​

We wrapped up CometCon with our End of Year holiday party and prizegiving to celebrate some milestones and special awards for our Comet team members.

Long Service Awards​

• Suprio Das, Developer – 5 years
• Josh Flores, General Manager – 12 years

Graduation from Junior Dev program​

• Liam Green, Developer

Best CometCon Talk​

• Michelle, Marketing – Winner
• Callum, Product – Runner Up

December Team Nomination​

• JC, Developer

Special Thanks​

• Leandra, for organizing CometCon and keeping the office running smoothly behind the scenes

2024 Monthly Team Nominations​

Earlier this year we started a new initiative, Team Nominations, where we acknowledge our teammates at Comet. At the end of each month, anyone at the company can submit a Team Nomination to give kudos and shoutouts to someone they work with who they feel deserves to be recognized for their work. The nominees are given a shout out during our Friday team meeting at the end of each month, and a prize goes to the top nominee. Congratulations to this year’s winners!

• December – JC, Developer
• November – Alex, Sales
• October – Mike A, Developer Team Lead
• September– Rhane, Developer
• August – Ben Frengley, Developer
• July – Xavier, Customer Success
• June – Michelle, Marketing

That’s a wrap​

There’s always such a buzz in the office for the week of CometCon, and this mini CometCon was no exception. It was great to get everyone together for collaboration, connection, and celebration as we wrap up 2024 and look forward to next year. We can’t wait to bring you on the journey with us for what’s next for Comet in 2025!

Written by Callum Sinclair - Product Engineering Manager.

Linux Disk Image​

Bare-Metal backup and restores for Linux is now available in Comet 24.9.8 or later. With Linux Disk Image you can protect all of your Linux devices and eliminate the hassle of reinstalling and configuring devices from scratch when a disaster occurs.

If you'd like to watch a video guide of our Disk Image Protected Item, check it out here.

Key Features​

• Bare-Metal Backup: Protect entire disks and partitions for full system recovery.
• Restore Anywhere: Bring your system back to life on physical hardware, virtual machines or even the cloud.
• Granular Restore: Quickly restore files and/or folders from the backup when key files need to be recovered.

When setting up Linux Disk Image, you are able to choose what disks and/or partitions you want to protect. Once you've selected what you'd like to protect, all of the data is deduplicated, compressed, and encrypted as it is backed up on the fly. This means all of your data is secure as it is uploaded and less storage space is used to store the backup.

Bare-Metal Backup​

Backing up your Linux endpoints with Linux Disk Image does not require any additional storage space for spooling (temporary storage). The snapshot of the disk is taken and uploaded without the need for additional temporary storage drives.

To get started backing up your Linux devices, all you need to do is download and install Comet on the device and configure a Disk Image Protected Item.

Additional Disk Snapshot Driver​

backupsnap61 is a custom Linux kernel driver provided by Comet that can snapshot any block device. If it is installed, it will be used to snapshot the block device for backup.

The benefit of installing our custom backupsnap61 driver is:

• Ensures that snapshots of all partitions can be taken, especially if they are mounted.
• Skips efficiently over unused disk space, significantly improving backup performance for disks with large unused sectors.

Before the custom backupsnap61 driver can be installed, your Linux device will need to be running Kernel 5.9 or later and have Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS).

A copy of the backupsnap61 installer is bundled with Comet Backup. To install this driver, simply run ./backupsnap61-install.sh from your Comet Backup install directory.

Comet can also take disk snapshots using other methods, which is covered in our docs here.

Restore Anywhere​

Once a Disk Image backup has been taken for your Linux device, you have the flexibility to restore data in one of the five following ways:

• Bare Metal Restore: Boot into a recovery environment with Comet and restore the data to physical drives
• Granular Restore: Select individual files / folders to restore quickly
• Hyper-V: Restore to Hyper-V VHDX files
• VMware: Restore to VMware ESXi-compatible files
• Virtual Disk Files: Restore to virtual disk files that can be explored or mounted.

Bootable Linux Recovery Environment​

To assist with restoring to a physical Linux endpint, a bootable Linux recovery environment with Comet pre-installed can be created and written to a USB.

After the USB has been created, all you need is to plug it in to the physical machine you want to restore the data to and boot from the USB. Then you can use Comet to select where you'd like to restore the data to. To learn more about restoring a Disk Image backup to a physical machine you can check out our docs here or our walkthrough here.

Feature Voting​

Adding Disk Image for Linux was a highly upvoted request from our Feature Voting system. We encourage you to check out this system and let your voice be heard - at the time of writing, we have completed over 180 user feature requests. Your votes are one of the things we take into consideration when building our product roadmap.

Hello,

Today we are announcing new pricing plans. Comet has always been a flexible platform, and we want to make it easier for you to build out the backup environment that’s best for your business.

The Comet community is at the heart of everything we do. We’re committed to our mission of helping MSPs provide great backup services. We recognize that different partners have different needs. With that in mind, we have designed plans that fit various use cases and allow businesses to scale and grow.

We’re introducing five different tiers, with options to suit a variety of deployments. Plans are based on configuration and usage of management consoles, devices, and boosters. Only pay for what you use, with no hidden fees.

What this means for you?​

• You can choose your pricing plan in the billing section of the account dashboard here.
• If you need help selecting a plan, feel free to reach out to our team and we’d be happy to discuss your specific business requirements.
• If you want to migrate from Self-Hosted to Comet-Hosted, you can use our new migration tool with these step-by-step instructions. Or you can raise a support ticket for assistance with the process.

Our team is here to help if you have questions or need assistance selecting the best plan for your business. Get in touch with us at partners@cometbackup.com.

Thanks for being on this journey with us.

Thank you,
Josh

Josh Flores
General Manager
Comet Backup

FAQs:​

What are the differences between the pricing plans?​

The pricing plans are based on configuration and usage of management console licenses, devices, and boosters. These plans are designed to be flexible for different use cases and backup environments. You can read about the plans in more detail and compare them here.

I’m a Comet-Hosted customer, how does this change affect me?​

Our Professional plan is designed for most Comet-Hosted customers. On this plan there are no changes to your monthly costs or features.

If you use both Comet-Hosted and Self-Hosted, the Advanced plan is best suited to your needs. Check out this detailed comparison chart to learn more.

I’m a Self-Hosted customer, how does this change affect me?​

Our Starter, Growth and Advanced plans are all designed for Self-Hosted customers. Check out this detailed comparison chart to learn more.

Can I change my plan later?​

Yes, you can upgrade your plan in the billing section of your account at any time. If you want to downgrade your plan, please contact our team partners@cometbackup.com for assistance.

Can I migrate from Self-Hosted to Comet-Hosted?​

Yes, the migration tool is ready. The migration process will likely take about 10-20 minutes, with little to no interruption to your customers and services. You can either run the migration yourself with these step-by-step instructions. Or you can raise a support ticket for assistance with the process.

Do note that using a Comet-Hosted Server will incur a $49 monthly fee, and there are some differences in feature between a Comet-Hosted and Self-Hosted Server. Please check out the features parity in our product page.

What happens if I don’t select a plan?​

If you haven’t selected a plan, one of our account managers will review your account and move you onto the plan that best aligns with your usage. If you’d like to change your plan after that, you can upgrade your plan in the billing section of your account at any time. If you want to downgrade your plan, please contact our team partners@cometbackup.com for assistance.

What is the difference between Comet-Hosted (cloud-hosted) and Self-Hosted?​

Comet-Hosted is automatically configured and is cloud-hosted, with no system requirements, and has fully managed quarterly updates, so it is easy to maintain.

Self-Hosted is our more customizable option. It can be hosted anywhere including on-prem or in the cloud, which makes it more flexible in complying with regulatory requirements.

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

It’s that time of year again, the leaves are changing color, pumpkin spice lattes are back on the menu, and Halloween is approaching. October is also Cybersecurity Awareness Month, an international initiative that educates people about online safety and empowers individuals and businesses to protect their data from cybercrime.

History of Cybersecurity Awareness Month​

Cybersecurity Awareness Month was launched by the National Cybersecurity Alliance and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in October 2004 as a dedicated month to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. October 2024 marks the 21st Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

How MSPs and IT Providers Can Observe Cybersecurity Awareness Month​

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a great opportunity for MSPs and IT Providers to remind end users and clients about how they can stay safe online. It’s also a great time to audit and review your clients’ security situations and educate them on the importance of cybersecurity and a strong backup solution.

Secure Our World​

The enduring theme for Cybersecurity Awareness Month is Secure Our World. This theme recognizes the importance of taking daily action to reduce risks when online and connected to devices. Below are the simple actions we should all take not only during October, but every day throughout the year to stay safe online.

Four Easy Ways to Stay Safe Online​

Here are some simple tips to remind end users and clients how they can protect themselves and their data online.

• Use Strong and Unique Passwords – A strong password should be long, random, unique, and include all four character types, including uppercase, lowercase, numbers and symbols. Password managers are a powerful and useful tool to help you create and maintain strong passwords for reach of your accounts.

• Turn on Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) – MFA refers to the separate methods of verifying one’s identity in order to access an account. This may include logging into an account with a password and then re-confirming with an authentication code. Enabling MFA offers an extra layer of protection.

• Recognize & Report Phishing Scams – Learn how to stay alert for phishing attacks, which refer to the attempt to trick people into sharing valuable data or visiting malware-infected websites.

• Keep Your Software Updated – Updating your software regularly ensures that you have the latest security patches, bug fixes, and updates on your devices and apps. Having outdated software may be a vulnerability that a cyber-criminal could exploit.

Bonus Tip: Have a Solid Backup Solution​

One critical aspect of cybersecurity that MSPs should highlight is the importance of having a reliable backup solution. While cybersecurity efforts focus on preventing breaches, attacks such as ransomware or phishing incidents can still happen, and when they do, a strong backup system can be a lifesaver.

MSPs should use Cybersecurity Awareness Month to remind clients that a proactive cybersecurity plan must include both defensive measures and a strong data backup strategy. By having secure and frequent backups, organizations can mitigate the worst effects of an attack and bounce back faster, saving time and money.

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

History of National IT Professionals Day​

National IT Professionals Day, or IT Pro Day, is celebrated annually on the third Tuesday in September and recognizes the technical experts and the critical role IT plays in our modern world. National IT Professionals Day was originally created in 2015 by SolarWinds, an IT management software provider. This year IT Pro Day falls on Tuesday, September 17, 2024.

What are IT Professionals and what do they do?​

IT Professionals are the technical experts who make sure our networks and systems run smoothly and play a crucial role in managing and securing technology environments within businesses and organizations.

Whether it’s desktops, laptops, mobile devices, servers, networks, databases, applications, or cybersecurity, IT professionals keep our organizations going.

These are some common roles within the IT industry:

• Systems Administrator
• Network Engineer
• Help Desk Technician
• Systems Analyst
• Database Administrator
• Information Security Manager
• Software Developer
• DevOps Engineer

How to observe and celebrate #ITProDay​

Here are some ideas on how to celebrate and acknowledge the everyday IT heroes in your life:

• Remember your password and use the password manager
• Submit a support ticket instead of sending a DM or emailing IT directly
• Restart your computer and make sure the software is up to date before asking IT for help
• Complete the cybersecurity trainings and do not click on phishing emails
• Do your best to avoid spilling coffee on your laptop or keyboard

In all seriousness, we appreciate all the hard work that talented IT professionals do every single day. IT professionals and technical experts are essential to the success of every part of an organization, no matter how big or small.

To celebrate IT Pro Day, you can also give a shout out to your favorite IT person, buy them a coffee (or a snack), and thank them for keeping our systems operating and running 24/7.

Thanks to all the IT professionals out there!​

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

History of SysAdmin Day​

System Administrator Appreciation Day, or SysAdmin Day, is celebrated on the last Friday in July and recognizes all the IT professionals who keep our organizations up and running around the clock. SysAdmin Day was created in 2000 by Ted Kekatos, a system administrator, and has been celebrated around the globe since. This year SysAdmin Day falls on Friday, July 26, 2024.

What is a SysAdmin and what do they do?​

SysAdmins are the everyday IT heroes who keep our hardware and software running smoothly, manage our organizations’ IT environments, and keep our networks and systems secure. They are critical to supporting all your organizations’ IT operations in various areas, including:

• Data backup
• Managing users (permissions, troubleshooting, etc.)
• Configuring and updating systems
• Network security
• Cybersecurity protocols
• Hardware and software troubleshooting

Backups for System Administrators​

Backing up data is an important part of a SysAdmin’s role in safeguarding organizations and businesses. Backups help protect data against human error, hardware failure, ransomware, and natural disasters.

Comet Backup is an all-in-one backup solution built for IT teams and managed service providers (MSPs) to help protect businesses and prepare them with a disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Comet Backup is highly configurable, supports a broad range of backup types, and has flexible storage options.

Top 5 Tips for SysAdmins using Comet Backup​

Here are some tips and best practices for SysAdmins using Comet Backup:

1. Configure and check user permissions – user profiles are used in Comet’s encryption and key management, and therefore, act as a security boundary.

2. Enable MFA (multi-factor authentication) for admins and end users – secure backups and logins with strong passwords and MFA for an additional layer of security.

3. Set a retention policy – to save storage space and ensure required data is kept for compliance and business continuity.

4. Automate backups on a regular schedule– to ensure consistent data protection, improve business continuity, and reduce recovery time.

5. Set up custom email reports – to ensure that unsuccessful jobs and warnings can be investigated and addressed as soon as possible.

Thank you to all SysAdmins & IT professionals!​

While SysAdmin Day is a great reminder to express thanks to your organizations’ system administrators that keep everything running 24/7, we think they should be celebrated every day as our IT heroes.

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

We're proud to announce our partnership with cloud storage provider, Impossible Cloud. As a European-based company, this is a great option for IT Providers with GDPR compliance requirements. All data is securely stored within a European Cloud Provider in top-tier, GDPR-compliant, and ISO-certified data centers, eliminating the need for additional investment in data storage compliance.

Who is Impossible Cloud?​

Impossible Cloud is Europe’s premier cloud storage solution, designed to provide businesses with secure, scalable, and cost-effective data storage.

Their platform features built-in ransomware protection, unlimited hot storage, and 100% S3 API compatibility. Advanced security measures and significant cost savings makes Impossible Cloud an ideal choice for businesses looking to enhance their data storage capabilities.

How the Integration Works​

Comet’s user-friendly integration with Impossible Cloud allows you to easily select Impossible Cloud as your storage solution.

The integration includes Storage Template support for provisioning direct-to-cloud buckets for individual end-users. This feature can use Impossible Cloud's IAM functionality for end-user support, as well as their partner API for MSPs who are looking to start reselling Impossible Cloud storage.

Object Lock for Protecting Data from Ransomware​

Another great feature we have with Impossible Cloud is Object Lock integration for creating immutable backups. Object Lock puts the data in an immutable state—it’s accessible and usable, but it can’t be changed or deleted. This provides complete defense against ransomware attacks, giving you peace of mind for data stored in the cloud.

Impossible Cloud IAM Storage Template with Object Lock

Cost Savings​

Another aspect that makes Impossible Cloud competitive for IT Providers is their price €7.99 per terabyte per month, with no egress or hidden fees. Impossible Cloud’s has a pay-for-what-you-use pricing structure which is designed to be transparent and predictable. This price is competitive with Wasabi, Backblaze and our own Comet Storage offering, with the benefit of allowing you to pay in Euros if you wish.

More Resources​

Find out more about the Comet Backup and Impossible Cloud partnership in our documentation and on Impossible Cloud’s website.

Webinar​

If you want to learn more about our integration partnership, join us for our joint webinar on Premier Cloud Storage & Backup for Europe’s MSPs on Wednesday, July 17th at 11am CET (Central European Time). If you can’t make it live, you can still register to get the recording sent to you after the webinar.

Register for the webinar here.

Written by Michelle Wong - Marketing Specialist

Last week we held our fourth CometCon event, a company-wide internal conference where both local and remote team members gather at Comet HQ for a week of collaboration, workshops, speaker talks, and connection.

As usual, our General Manager, Josh, kicked off the week with a fun team activity – this time splitting everyone into teams for an interactive quiz. After the winners were presented with their prizes, we launched into the conference sessions.

Here are some highlights from the week:

Speaker Series​

At each CometCon, every department is welcome to submit a topic for the speaker series. This week we had three technical deep dives from our developers, a website workshop with the Marketing team, customer insights from the Sales team, and a Q&A session focused on our European distributor market. It’s always valuable to learn from different departments and discuss how we can improve the product and experience for our customers.

Developer Sprint​

During CometCon, our developers worked in pairs on a dedicated week-long sprint. It was great to partner the devs up with someone they don’t usually work with to generate fresh ideas and smash out specific projects.

Open Discussions​

In addition to the speaker series, we also had several open discussions about the product roadmap and our company direction, facilitated by Callum, our Product Engineering Manager, and Josh, our GM. Everyone was welcome to ask questions and contribute to the conversation in a town hall style discussion. It’s important to us to hear different perspectives and thoughts from all the teams on Comet’s journey.

Time for connection​

One of the most valuable parts of CometCon is the unstructured time to connect and chat with everyone in person, especially for our fully remote team members. Even for those who work at Comet HQ – our company has a hybrid model where a couple days are remote each week – it is valuable to have everyone together for a full week. We find that the conversations and innovative ideas that get tabled over a shared plate of tacos or a pint at the pub, it something you just can’t replicate over Slack.

That’s a wrap​

This was our best CometCon yet! The energy and buzz of having everyone together was amazing. Huge thanks to the event organizers for another successful CometCon! We can’t wait for the next one.

Written by Callum Sinclair - Product Engineering Manager

We're pleased to announce the Syncro integration with Comet is now available. This has been a popular feature request and we are pleased that partners can now monitor their backups through Syncro's RMM platform.

Who Is Syncro?​

Syncro - Helps you scale your MSP buisness with efficiency and ease.

Transform how you manage customers and your business with RMM, PSA and remote access in a single platform. The streamlined workflow allows you to focus your time and energy on what you're an expert in – providing solutions for your clients.

How The Syncro Integration Works​

With the Syncro integration, you can access RMM alerts in Syncro's platform when a Comet backup job fails or doesn’t run. This allows you to see your alerts in one place, rather than logging into Comet, and troubleshoot before you lose any business critical data.

If you are interested in configuring this integration, you can read our guide here.

What To Expect​

When a backup job fails, a new RMM alerts will be created. You can see this on the Open RMM Alerts page in Syncro. An example of how this will look is:

If the failure is due to an intermittent issue, Comet will clear the alert when the backup job succeeds again.

This means you no longer have to login to your Comet Server to check if backup jobs are running successfully or not.

Dear Partners,

We announced a change to our Self-Hosted licensing this week, and I’d like to take some time to provide more context. We have received feedback, both positive and negative, with many constructive insights – thank you to those that have been in touch.

Since launching in 2017, Self-Hosted has evolved into our enterprise solution which allows you access to features such as:

• Setting up tenant accounts
• Multi-server replication
• Support for on-prem storage
• Access to our full API
• Scalable solution for resellers and distributors

Comet-Hosted does not support these features, which is why its price remains $49/server/month. Please check out our product pages for Self-Hosted and Comet-Hosted for a full comparison.

We’re committed to helping MSPs provide great backup services. In order to fulfil that mission and to grow the product, we need to adequately support and resource our development team. As our business grows to meet your needs, our pricing model needed to change.

Increasingly, we’re finding that more end-users are skipping their MSP and are buying Comet directly. We have always supported a Channel-first approach. We stand behind the value that we know MSPs offer their clients. It’s important to us to honor that commitment and drive business to our MSP partners.

With our previous pricing model, we were seeing a disproportionate number of signups choosing Self-Hosted, based solely on price. They spent a lot of time setting it up, and we spent a lot of time helping them configure a product that didn’t necessarily suit their use case. The purpose of this price realignment is to match customers with the product that best fits their needs based on feature set rather than a default price.

We understand that for some of our partners this is a big change. We are here to help you navigate this transition and figure out what is right for your business. Whether you want to stay with Self-Hosted, migrate to Comet-Hosted, or work with one of our trusted resellers or distributors, we are here to help you. Feel free to reach out to us at hello@cometbackup.com to discuss your options.

Thank you,
Josh

Josh Flores
General Manager
Comet Backup

We’ve had some questions, and I’d like to address a few of these here:

Q. Have there been any external influences on this decision?​

A. No, we’re a privately owned company. Our only influence has been to reflect the true value of Comet’s Self-Hosted enterprise-level features and benefits as well as the time and effort of our excellent support and onboarding team.

Q. Could you have verified / confirmed MSPs and businesses before they could access Self-Hosted?​

A. We have heard it loud and clear that having to book a sales call to access a product isn’t well liked. This is why you can start a free trial with Comet at any time.

Q. Are you wanting to migrate users to Comet-Hosted to then put up the price there?​

A. We have no plans to change the price for Comet-Hosted.

Q. Could you have just charged users for support?​

A. This has the effect of discouraging people from reaching out to us. We’re here to help, and we want our partners to succeed. Our support remains free.

Q. Are any other areas of Comet’s pricing affected?​

A. No, this pricing change only affects Self-Hosted Server licensing.

Last month we premiered our inaugural Research & Development Week. Previous to this, developers worked on independent projects during Comet’s quarterly Hackathon. We changed up the format in Q1 to instead have a consolidated focus on high impact initiatives. Our developers split into three teams to collaborate on improving your user experience.

The three projects were scoped and designed by our CTO and Product Engineering Manager. Each team presented initial ideas, proof of concept, findings, and next steps. We utilized this collaborative, team-based approach to mix developers with differing specialties, who don’t normally work together, for synergistic problem-solving sessions to improve the software.

The three topics were:

• Can we make an awesome experience restoring data from the Comet Server web interface?
• Can we upgrade how Comet uses memory when running backup / restore jobs?
• Can we improve how we backup / restore data to and from S3 storage vaults?

R&D week was a great success. We made great progress in all three areas. Some of the research and development work is making its way to become production ready code, and others need a bit more time to become features for Comet customers.

It was rewarding to challenge our team in areas outside their traditional expertise and get some wins on the board over the course of a few days to improve Comet.

World Backup Day serves as a timely reminder to review your backup strategies and to educate your end users and partners on the importance of data backup.

While World Backup Day is observed annually on March 31st, MSPs and IT providers play a critical role in protecting businesses and organisations every day of the year.

History of World Backup Day​

World Backup Day was created in 2011 and started with a post on Reddit where a user wrote about losing their hard drive and wished someone had reminded them about how important it is to backup data. World Backup Day highlights the importance of securing and protecting data.

Why is data backup important?​

In today’s digital age, data backup and data protection is critical for businesses and organisation to help protect against:

• Ransomware
• Cybersecurity attacks
• Human error
• Data loss
• Hardware malfunction
• Power failure
• Natural disasters

Having a robust backup solution and solid restore process will help safeguard against these threats and help minimize downtime for your end users and clients.

Reminders for World Backup Day​

Here are some top tips:

• Review your backup strategy and solutions for different data types, backup types, storage solutions and destinations
• Regularly test your backup and restore processes
• Check backup schedules to confirm they are running as intended
• Automate and streamline processes to save time such as email reports and job log alerts
• Make sure your servers and databases are backed up, not just your endpoints

Comet Backup for MSPs, IT Providers & Businesses​

A secure and reliable backup platform is essential to MSPs & IT Providers’ backup and disaster recovery (BDR) strategy to maintain business continuity in the event of a security incident.

Here are some of the core features & benefits of Comet Backup:

• Easy to use: Comet Backup has an intuitive, easy-to-use web console where you can remotely manage and protect devices. Comet is fast and easy to set up – start running backups and restores in less than 15 minutes.

• Flexible: Choose Comet Storage powered by Wasabi for an all-in-one storage solution, or utilize your own storage, whether that’s an on-prem solution or a S3 compatible storage provider (including AWS, Backblaze, Wasabi, Azure, and more). You’re in control of where your data sits.

• Fast, efficient chunking technology: Advanced backup algorithm packages data into small blocks for faster uploads and downloads, saving valuable time.

• Reliable, Safe & Secure: Data is encrypted during backup, transit, and rest. Comet is also HIPPA and GDPR compliant.

• Client-side deduplication: Reduces redundant data, ensuring more efficient storage usage and therefore cost savings.

• Incremental forever without full re-uploads: After the initial backup, only changes are uploaded, conserving bandwidth, and accelerating the backup process.

• Compression and encryption: Client data is compact for storage efficiency and secured against breaches, ensuring peace of mind.

Protect your data this World Backup Day​

World Backup Day is a great time to educate and remind your end users and partners of the importance of data backup. Your goal as IT Providers and MSPs is to provide the best support and solutions to give your partners peace of mind and confidence that their businesses’ data is safe and protected.

Test drive Comet Backup with a 30-day FREE trial, or book a discovery call with our team to learn more about how Comet can help your business.

We get asked often by our users what can they do to sharpen up their backup marketing and overall messaging in the face of rising competition. To answer this best I turned to Nicola Devine over at Tanker Creative to not only answer how you can improve it and attract more customers but for actionable steps that any busy backup provider could undertake. Below is part 1.

The Tanker Universe… it’s not that complicated

Tanker WEBSITE Tips: Online and Feeling Fine 101​

By Nicola Devine, Tanker Creative

Blogs, Websites, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, SnapChat, MailChimp, Facebook, Instagram – woah Nelly! So many channels, so, sooooo time consuming simply to work out which one/s to use and how to wield their weapons of choice whether hashtags, boosts or meta tags – it’s enough to cause a collective rumble of global eye rolling.

Chunk It Down​

Let’s make it simple right now and focus on the most important online channel when it comes to marketing your business, building credibility, awareness, educating visitors on your offering and providing a way for them to engage your services or purchase your products. Your website.

Why is YOUR website the ultimate shiz?​

Websites are awesome for most businesses for many reasons: First up because your content is not in an channel such as FaceBook or Instagram that you have little control over when it comes to the content, imagery, functionality, random upgrades… your website is your best opportunity for an awesome gig.

To get things running smoothly when it comes to websites consider a few things. Number #1 – get something up! Even if it’s one page with your logo, contact details and an email, and build from there. #2 people are nosy – make sure you have an About page, start loading up your products or services, and add a News page.

News or Blog pages are great on a couple of levels and worth committing to. You know that thing about people being nosy? Well they also like the latest goss, so adding a news post at least once is a great idea, that way, when people come back to your site they know there always be something new to check out. Google also loves it when you’re adding new content to your site – it’s helping your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

More nifty tips for news posts:​

• Install an SEO plug-in like YOAST and fill out your snippets and keywords. And make sure you incluse your keyword in your text a few times too.
• There’s a lot of talk about how much content to write, but aim for a minimum of 300 words. Other studies say anything from 1500 to 3000 is optimal!
• Consider design. Don’t make your news post a wall of words. Break it up with some different elements such as graphs, images, bullet points, bold text, italicised text, text in a coloured or framed box, quotes. Bring a hierarchy of information to the page so that even if someone only has a minute to look at it they’ll see the most important take aways.
• Add a call to action at the end. You’ve provided some information, inspiration even some badass attitude. Invite the reader to continue the conversation – whether it’s to contact you for a cuppa, come back again soon or sign up for a service or product.
• Get the hook ups to Google Analytics and check out what your visitors are doing. That data is cool and it’ll help you refine your website further.

And that’s a wrap for today. Make sure you head back here next week for when I’ll be giving the downlow on MailChimp.

See y’all then​

About Nicola Devine​

Originally trained as a graphic designer in the 1990s, when iPhones were still a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, Nicola has been involved in both print-based and interactive media since her time studying at Wanganui School of Design.

Tanker Creative, Nicola’s design and marketing her business, was founded in 2003, and works with a mix of corporate, luxury and creative clients on strategy, development, implementation and reporting.

Nicola is an avid follower of new technology in marketing, design and communications. She is also a contributor to Design Assembly, an organisation promoting conversations in graphic design. Her claim to fame is being on a train in Spain, on the plain, in the rain.