It wasn’t long ago when data recovery required a service technician to have direct, physical access to the system in question. Thankfully, times have changed. Not only are there countless software-based solutions to data restoration and recovery, but service technicians can even troubleshoot and, in many cases, successfully recover data over a network connection.
Recovering Files Through an Internet Connection
With so much importance being placed on PCs and laptop computers, it’s tough to see the average consumer go a day without using their beloved systems. As such, consumers are hesitant to bring their devices into a shop for data recovery – especially if it means they’ll have to go several days without their hardware. That’s what makes the concept of online data recovery such an attractive and viable option.
However, Internet-based data recovery is significantly more complex than traditional data restoration. Instead of attempting to recover files from a local disk, you’ll be working remotely – which presents its own set of pros and cons.
One of the biggest obstacles comes in the form of NAT (network address translation) andfirewall traversal and, more specifically, gaining the proper access to a client’s machine via remote connection. There are several NAT traversal techniques available, including:
- Socket Secure, also known as SOCKS
- Traversal Using Relays around NAT, or TURN
- NAT hole punching
- Session Traversal Utilities for NAT, or STUN
- Interactive Connectivity Establishment, or ICE
- UPnP Internet Gateway Device Protocol, also known as IGDP
- NAT-PMP
- PCP, the success to NAT-PMP
- Application-level gateway, or ALG
- Hosted NAT traversal, also known as HNT
When working with systems on the consumer level, the process of remote data recovery is generally easier. The biggest challenge comes when trying to access enterprise-level systems, which are often protected by firewalls, NAT devices, and more. In cases like this, you’ll need sophisticated software and, in certain scenarios, advanced hardware.
Firewall traversals are generally a little more straightforward. When trying to gain access to a firewall within an Oracle-protected system, for example, you can configure a SGD (Secure Global Desktop) server to listen on port 443. This forces the SGD to forward all traffic – with the exception of AIP traffic – to the SGD web server. Note that this method of firewall traversal is incompatible when using the SGD Gateway or when using a tablet device.
You’ll also need a location to store any recovered files. While this can be a location on the client’s machine itself, this isn’t always the best solution – especially if the system is prone to future problems. In this case, it might be a better idea to transfer the recovered files to an external location in the form of a USB thumb drive, DVD, Blu-ray, or external hard drive.
Finally, keep in mind that the exact method of access – including any NAT or firewall traversal techniques – is dependent on the client’s system. With different combinations of operating systems, software, and hardware in use today, your experience may vary.
