AN INTERNET ONLINE BACKUP SYSTEM PROVIDES REMOTE STORAGE FOR CUSTOMERS USING IDS AND PASSWORDS WHICH WERE INTERACTIVELY ESTABLISHED WHEN SIGN ING UP FOR BACKUP SERVICES

This invention makes it possible for a customer computer to connect to an online service provider computer by phone, Internet, or other method, pay a fee to said service provider, and obtain additional processing and storage resources for the customer's computer. The resources can take the form of virtual storage and processing capabilities. These capabilities give the customer computer what appears to be additional local processing power and/or additional local storage, this storage possibly including preloaded software and/or data. The additional resources made available to the customer computer can be used either to enhance the customers' local needs (such as access to virtual storage for additional disk space, or access to a more powerful processor of similar type for program execution), or these additional resources can be used by the customer computer to support services on-line that otherwise would be unavailable, impractical, or unaffordable. Examples of services include software and information rental, sales, and release update services, anti-viral services, backup and recovery services, and diagnostic and repair services, to name a few.