Thanks for Your Feedback.
I understand that a $1,100 can be a lot to spend on software for a small web hosting outfit.
Have you considered:
$1,100 amortized over 3 years is - $1,100 / 36 = $30.56 per month
Thats $30.56 / 4 servers =
$7.64 per server per month for backup software that will reduce your server load, bandwidth consumption (by backups), and provide you great recovery point objectives (RPO) by backing up every hour.
You also get a value add service to your cpanel customers by providing self-service restores.
You have 4 CPanel servers so I assume you are doing shared hosting. Have you considered adding a data protecting surcharge to your hosting fees?
How many hosting accounts do you have on those 4 servers? What if you charged each one just $0.25 per month extra as a data protection surcharge?
If you have 50 accounts per server (50 x 4 servers = 200 accounts * .25 = $50 / month). That pays for the software in 2 years and then provides a profit of roughly ~$50 / month you didn't have before and you still have the backup software.
You expressed interest in programming. Did you know the mechanism for authenticating CPanel users to allow them to restore files in R1Soft is open source and in Perl?
See
Integrating with New Hosting Control Panels - CDP Server 2.0 Documentation - R1Soft Continuous Data Protection - Docs - KB Articles - Technical Papers
You could easily modify the authentication Perl script to check a list of users allowed to perform self-service restores. Now you have a new add-on service available for all of your hosting accounts.
Your competitors ARE MAKING $$$$ by providing backups with R1Soft. I would like to see you do the same.
By the way now is a great time to get the software. While it has taken longer than I wanted... CDP 3 is coming together fast and will be out soon. You don't want to miss the boat on CDP 3... it will really set a whole new bar for server backups all over again.
I took a screen shot of CDP 3 file browser which I happen to have open on a ESX Server VM that I am testing. It is attached.
Good hosting customer hunting.
Regards,
-David Wartell
-R1Soft Founder