Thanks, I hadn't seen the ampadmin download option, but it still makes it difficult/unreliable to automate backups as these options are clearly designed for human interaction rather than to be scripted. e.g. form the download option you can't predict which number to enter to download the latest backup.
Now there is no root access I can't run a backup client on the server and I can't automatically export the backups, so I am completely relying on RAID to protect me from data loss.