Backup & Disaster Recovery Services

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1 Kaseya White Paper Backup & Disaster Recovery Services A High-Value Offering with Substantial Profit Potential for MSPs

2 In recent years, data backup and disaster recovery (BDR) has been at or near the top of priorities for companies large and small when asked about technology investment plans. Decision makers recognize they need reliable BDR to protect their businesses, yet typically they invest a mere 2 percent to 4 percent of their IT budget on BDR solutions. So while the need is unquestionable; the real question becomes how to address it effectively. Thanks to remote management and cloud technologies, affordable, highly effective business continuity solutions are now within reach. Disaster Recovery delivered as a managed service, is now often the answer to providing reliable data backup and disaster recovery that even the smallest of budgets can cover. For solution providers, BDR creates an opportunity to boost value to clients by addressing a significant need. BDR gets businesses running quickly after an outage and so protects businesses from potential risk. Providers who add BDR to their offerings can enjoy substantial profit margins and incremental monthly recurring revenue. BDR, therefore, is ideal for solution providers, especially as a first step to a managed services practice. Preparing for Data Loss No matter how cautious users or IT administrators are, data losses are inevitable. Causes range from the cavalier and negligent to the malicious and criminal. In 2012, more than 80 percent of organizations responding to a Ponemon Institute study disclosed they had lost data at some point in the previous 12 months. The most common causes of data loss break down into two primary categories human error, such as intentional and unintentional file or program deletions, and hardware failure, resulting from system crashes, power outages, software bugs and application freezes. Causes such as malicious attacks, inadvertent security breaches and natural disasters also fit into one of those two primary categories directly or indirectly. For instance, a bad decision by a well-intentioned user when prompted to take action by an antivirus tool could create a security breach. A fire, flood or hurricane could cause a power failure, shutting off hardware systems before a chance to save data in use or in transmission. The point is data loss is a fact of life, but organizations can prevent it from being fatal. Sure, a power failure caused by a storm is bound to destroy some data, but an organization with a concrete, well-executed business continuity strategy can survive the worst of outages and reduce recovery to hours, rather than days. In a rare case when a physical space is rendered unusable or outright destroyed by a natural disaster or terrorist attack, a contingency to resume operations at an alternate site would be in place. The necessary data would be available for recovery at an off-site facility. Now that a BDR solution can be offered as a managed or cloud-based service, there is little excuse for ignoring this critical component of any IT strategy. The consequences of doing so are potentially dire. Data losses are disruptive, even devastating. They prevent employees from working, cutting off contact with customers, suppliers and partners, and causing financial losses ranging from minimal to fatal. BDR Services Recovery services are highly dependent on data backup and recovery systems to perform as expected. Backup technology has a sometimes spotty history, with tape-based backups proving over the years to be potentially problematic for businesses not equipped to deal with the complexities.

3 Tapes can get lost in transport and plenty of cases of tape failure have been documented. Research firm Gartner estimates that recovery from tapes is successful only 40 percent of the time. Disk-based systems have proven an attractive alternative but, when deployed on premises, can be expensive and difficult to manage, especially for smaller or midsize companies with thin budgets and small or non-existent IT staffs. Scalability is an important consideration with disk-based systems, often requiring added investment to add capacity to keep up with a company s data growth needs. Service Provider delivered BDR services can help address these challenges. End clients that sign up for a remotely managed service with off-site replication pay a monthly fee to providers, sparing themselves management burdens and the worry of whether the data will be available when needed. Cloud-based backup and recovery typically offers quick implementation, ease of use, a lower cost of ownership, and scalability. And as a company s data needs grow, it can add capacity without large investments in physical equipment or staff. Businesses can leverage the elasticity of managed and cloud-based services by reducing consumption of the service as their needs dictate. In cases of downtime, whether a company uses a BDR service makes a significant difference in recovery costs. When calculating the amount of lost revenue and productivity per hour, businesses have been known to save as much as 44 percent in IT costs by reducing downtime through a BDR service. Data Availability BDR ensures the quick resumption of operations following an outage, no matter the causes. But it goes beyond that: It s also about having quick access to data that isn t currently in use. An effective disaster recovery plan addresses various areas, including how often to back up data and systems, where to store them securely, and how to store them in a tiered approach so that data that is less used is still available when needed. Data availability is paramount, otherwise the usefulness of the Recovery Strategy can be diminished. To ensure recovery objectives are met, customers want guarantees in their service level agreements (SLA), and it s incumbent on solution providers and managed service providers (MSP) to meet those availability requirements with their service offerings. Providers have the option to price BDR services according to the level of resilience their clients need. Where the data resides requires different levels of management from a provider, who may be asked periodically to pull data from a backup for business purposes. For instance, an HR department may need Social Security Numbers for a HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) audit, or a sales manager might request five-year-old data for an internal trending report to present at a quarterly meeting. Understanding client data availability needs from the get-go allows providers to better develop SLAs and set appropriate price points. MSPs as Evangelists Even though many organizations are waking up to the need for reliable backup and disaster recovery, this area of technology has often been neglected. As we ve seen, data backup and disaster recovery makes up a miniscule percentage of most IT budgets, and in some cases it s zero. Software vendor Symantec has found 25 percent of SMBs don t back up at all, and as many as 50 percent store backup data in the same location as their computers. These statistics point to a lack of understanding, neglect or both. It is up to solution providers and MSPs to change this practice by evangelizing the very critical need for disaster recovery plans that include reliable processes and systems. Providers must change the it won t happen to me perception where it persists, primarily in smaller companies, and make them understand disaster recovery is integral to any company s IT strategy. It isn t an afterthought or something you spend the minimum you can get away with, but rather a key component that keeps a business viable and minimizes the impact of data losses. Data losses, as we have seen, don t just result from disasters, but also from virus infections, server

4 failures, power outages and accidental data deletions. Research firm Aberdeen found that power outages are the leading cause of data loss in SMBs, followed by accidental deletions. MSPs are in the best position to educate clients on the importance of being ready to recover from any of these eventualities without prolonged interruptions that bring employees to a standstill and prevent customers from doing business with them. If for no other reason, clients must be led to understand the repercussions of non- compliance with state and federal data protection regulations. Laws such as HIPAA, GLBA (Gramm-Leach Bliley Act) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act require that companies, no matter how large or small, protect sensitive data from leaks and breaches while in use, in transit and in storage. Data must be readily accessible if ever needed for audits or litigation. Providers, therefore, have an opportunity to emphasize data availability, as opposed to focusing exclusively on data losses. MSPs Benefits Managed services have intrinsically changed the relationship between IT service providers and their clients. Centralized Multi-tenant IT Systems Management (ITSM) allows providers to remotely keep tabs on multiple client s network performance and to anticipate problems, thereby preventing outages that hurt productivity and profits. When you consider how fundamental data backup and disaster recovery is to the mission of maximizing IT uptime, it s easy to see why BDR is an ideal MSP offering, especially as a gateway step to further services. Unfortunately, too many providers are closing themselves off to potential profits because they don t understand how to offer BDR as a service. In some cases, providers are combining several tools to deliver the service, which hurts profit potential because of the additional management and integration this approach requires. However, with the right approach and proper toolset, MSPs stand to benefit in multiple ways from BDR. For starters, BDR adds a tighter source of revenue. MSPs charge monthly fees for the service, which translates to predictable, recurring revenue. In addition, profit margins exceed those of other types of services, especially when providers are adept at pricing the service in accordance with data availability requirements. Beyond monetary benefits, BDR helps providers round out their offerings with a high-value service. Because the service addresses such a great need, it helps cultivate customer loyalty and long-term relationships, allowing providers to truly fulfill the role of trusted advisors to their clients and stand out from the competition. Kaseya BDR Kaseya, the leading provider of IT Systems Management for Service Providers, delivers a family of BDR offerings that are both tightly integrated into a single-pane-of-glass management platform and focused on automation. It is the Automation that drives efficiency and scalability to consistently and profitably offer BDR as a Service across multiple customers and sites. For providers, the Kaseya service opens a lucrative opportunity to address one of their clients greatest needs with an easy-to-manage solution that employs a centralized Web-based management console to deploy, configure, manage, monitor, secure, back up and restore distributed systems. Kaseya partners that already provide the service add on average $7,500 in monthly recurring revenue at margins generally around 20 percent. In an era of tight margins and slim budgets, these kinds of numbers are a welcome boon to IT service providers. Even better, partners that optimize the service by pricing SLAs to accommodate data availability in a tiered approach on the principle that some data is move valuable than others have been known to boost their margins to a very attractive 50 percent. Kaseya has built flexibility into the service with patented technology allowing partners to tailor the offering specific client needs. Delivered on premises or through the cloud, users have access to data/folder, client/machine/system or site/ location backup with online, near-line or offline recovery strategies.

5 The ability to offer data protection to customers based on the value of the data, and how frequently it may be needed, sets Kaseya s BDR offerings apart from competitors. Other benefits Kaseya partners can extend to clients include: Reduced recovery infrastructure requirements Reduced time to create and manage BDR plans Reduced cost for IT staff and disaster recovery testing Faster and less costly recovery following an outage Kaseya s BDR offerings make it possible for partners to protect their clients IT environments with real-time automated disk- based remote backup, offsite replication, disk imaging, virtual and bare metal restore for systems. Administrators have the ability to create an image of an entire system state, including operating systems, applications and user settings, which allows them to completely rebuild a downed system in less than an hour. Off-site replication in a secure facility ensures that remote backup images can be replicated quickly through an automated process to help a company resume operations as fast as possible. As part of the Kaseya IT Automation Framework, services can be reliably monitored to ensure trouble-free operations, and detailed reporting services can prove the value of the offering back to customers. Conclusion Solution providers and MSPs that have yet to add BDR services to their offering are walking away from lucrative opportunities, given that companies when polled often identify data backup and disaster recovery as one of their greatest needs. By leveraging Kaseya s BDR offerings, providers have a significant opportunity to boost their profit margins and increase monthly recurring revenue. As a welcome bonus, providers stand to benefit from stronger customer loyalty by offering them a much-needed high-value service. About Kaseya Kaseya is the leading global provider of IT Systems Management software. Kaseya solutions empower virtually everyone from individual consumers to large corporations and IT service providers to proactively monitor, manage and control IT assets remotely, easily and efficiently from one integrated Web-based platform Kaseya. All rights reserved. Kaseya and the Kaseya logo are among the trademarks or registered trademarks owned by or licensed to Kaseya International Limited. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.