It’s no secret to the most observant IT managers that digital security plays a key role in business today. It is worth remembering that this is independent of the sector of activity.
Companies that observe market movements and have followed the latest cyber attacks on organizations know that it is essential to invest in digital security mechanisms. Among these features, the main one is certainly back up.
To effectively meet business needs, however, it is critical that you, as an IT service provider, know how to choose the appropriate backup solution to deliver. Want to understand how to do this smartly and accurately? Keep reading!
Including backup solutions in the commercial proposal
Backup solutions can account for a large portion of an IT service provider’s revenue, significantly increasing their recurring revenue.
So, if you look closely at the backup offering as something that can be turned into a product (and can be scaled), you’ll realize that it’s an excellent opportunity to increase your business’s profits. In addition, there will be a big difference in your own performance, which will become more proactive, ensuring greater productivity.
However, the most common thing is that you offer the backup only when the customer requests it, right? In any case, a backup solution can be added to a business proposal, regardless of the initial request. Be aware that most companies are not protected, as many “workaround” solutions do not offer data restoration guarantees.
In addition to including a Backup solution in your Service Proposal, it is also important to identify and point out the client’s deficiencies and vulnerabilities, providing a kind of report along with your correction suggestion.
The backup solution as a product
First of all, it is important to say that the term “product” is used because it is a simple way for your client to understand the proposal. In fact, there is a consolidated backup service offering.
Thus, it is important to keep in mind that the ideal is not to sell a software license or storage spaces, but an efficient service that has built-in tools. It is worth mentioning that you must:
- Know well the tools used;
- Focus on disaster recovery;
- Understand customer needs;
- See that all this is a long-term strategy, that is, a project of continuous improvement.
Choosing the best backup solution
Some factors are essential when choosing the most suitable backup solution. Check out!
Specific development for MSPs
Many backup solutions were developed with a corporate focus so that they are used internally, and not for a service provider, who needs to manage multiple clients in an integrated way, in a single panel. This can lead to a series of limitations for the Managed Service Provider ( MSP ), which must provide IT solutions that allow it to optimize its productivity.
In addition to managing multiple clients, the appropriate solution must allow brand customization, have an appropriate licensing policy for resale and its development focused on ensuring productivity and quality of services to be provided.
Serving a large number of scenarios
A good backup solution must be able to meet the most diverse scenarios. We will highlight 3 mandatory items:
- virtualization backup — with granular restore;
- disaster recovery — disaster recovery;
- workstation backup — regardless of the volume of data (making it possible to compete with generic solutions such as Google Drive).
Sustainable scalability
It is important to analyze your long-term strategy, tracking the balance between operating costs, the number of customers, and the volume of data. Therefore, it is necessary to consider a backup solution that allows for this sustainable scalability, not increasing your operational costs as the number of clients or the volume of data increases.
Billing method
The solution you choose must have a licensing model that allows you to service large accounts (where the money is). A Gigas-based pricing model — the most common way of pricing — can be a major hurdle for customers who need large volumes (several Teras of data, for example).
On the other hand, there are offers that price by Devices, in which the charge is fixed for the backup of a machine, regardless of volume. In other words: in the Giga by Giga discussion, the Device solution is much more economical.
Technical characteristics
One of the main points – perhaps the most important – concerns the technical issues of the solution. See below for those that should be analyzed.
Data deduplication
You need to verify that the solution has the ability to ignore redundant data, which often requires hundreds of Terabytes of the disk. This is data deduplication.
True Delta®
Many solutions already have incremental and differential copy technology in the backup process. However, few have the ability to do this in the restore, which guarantees only the restoration of the missing data, without the need to download the entire volume of information.
As a result, it is possible to offer a differential of agility and obtain the satisfaction of the clients served.
Data scan
This is the ability to identify all the changes that should be backed up even before the job starts. Thus, the need to read the entire disk and the consumption of time or processing resources are avoided. Your backup solution must have the technology needed to do so.
The backup tool that has its own hash, which identifies the changes and makes these marks when the file is altered, has a great differential.
Granular restore of virtual machines
In practice, a virtual machine is a single file that has, inside it, several other files. The backup of these virtualizations will follow this logic, copying a single file.
If a backup solution doesn’t have the ability to granularly restore virtualization, you’ll need to restore a large file and run it to then gain access to the small files found within it.
With granular restore, point-in-time files can be restored without the need for a full VM restore.
Other fundamental aspects
Finally, you should consider how your solution works in other aspects, such as:
- Installation;
- Customization;
- monitoring;
- Management ;
- Technical support.
These points will bring you scale and productivity. By being able to place your identity in the backup solution, the service also gains more credibility, while the brand is strengthened. Such aspects can give more autonomy to the business, ensuring that it is scalable and grows in a healthy way.
