News

posted on 07 April 2008 12:28

HP has launched its Upline subscription-based service in the USA to backup and store consumer and small business' data online and provide web access to it.

Unlike EMC's Mozy service which just backs up data over the Internet, Upline lets users share their digital content to other Internet-connected users and also to make it available as a Web resource.

The technology comes from Opelin, a small, privately-held company started up in 2003 that HP has quietly bought. That company's Titanize service still exists on the web but, if you want a free trial, you are taken to the Upline web site.

Data is sucked at schedulable intervals from a user's system and sent in encrypted form over the Internet to HP-maintained datacentres for secure storage. A one year free trial is available but only in the USA. It includes a fixed amount of online storage capacity.

HP claims that, 'by providing simple and more secure file storage, automatic data backup, remote access and sharing, HP Upline helps protect against data loss due to a lost or stolen PC, hardware failure, file corruption or catastrophic disaster.'

Users can access their data from any Internet-connected PC or notebook, in much the same way they could access their HP MediaVault, a home or very small business network-attached storage (NAS) product.

For the small business user there is a multi-user dashboard to track the usage of employee Upline accounts.

There are three Upline subscription plans available:-

1. The Home and Home Office with three PCs supported at $59/year.

2. The Family with three independent user subscriptions at $149/year.

3. The Professional version for small businesses with up to 100 employees costing $299/year.

The service is also available through HP's US resellers.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}