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Managed Backup-as-a-Service

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What is Managed Backup or Backup-as-a-Service?

Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) is a backup subscription model that allows data to be stored remotely in the cloud often managed by a third-party service provider to ensure data is secure and restorable.

While most Backup-as-a-Service solutions focus on offsite cloud backup storage, some solution providers offer hybrid backup with both on- and offsite storage options. Working directly with a service provider (especially for small businesses) offers substantial benefits. First, it removes the complexity of managing a company’s backup infrastructure, giving them the peace of mind of knowing that their backups are being managed and monitored by an expert in their field. Secondly, should a disaster scenario occur, the service provider won't have them face recovery alone. 

MSP backup or managed backup services is a data protection service that Managed Service Providers (MSPs), IT system integrators, and other IT professionals offer to their business clients. As a service, MSPs can remotely manage, monitor, and report on the backup and recovery of their clients' data using a web-based central management console.

TIP: Managed backup can be a cloud-based, local, or hybrid Backup-as-a-Service solution with local and cloud backup storage. To follow best practices, your backup strategy should contain both onsite and offsite backups.

What is Hybrid Backup?

Hybrid backup enables businesses to meet regulatory compliance combining both onsite and offsite cloud backup in a single solution, and often in a single step, making data protection more secure and efficient. 

Learn more about Hybrid Backup →

  

Why Offer Backup-as-a-Service?

Predictable-revenue-growth

Getting into MSP backup or managed backup services can feel like a daunting task. However, there are significant advantages for MSPs, VARs (value-added resellers), and IT service providers offering Backup-as-a-Service. Here are just a few of the advantages:

Improves Financial Performance

  • Gain stability from predictable, recurring revenue: By offering managed backup services, your revenue is no longer at the mercy of unpredictable customer needs. Instead, offering Backup-as-a-Service allows you to benefit from a consistent revenue stream and gain financial stability, allowing you to plan for future growth.
  • Increase your profit margins: Charging monthly for a full suite of managed services enables you to sell the same products at a higher overall margin. Backup-as-a-Service solutions include automatic upgrades and renewals, so you do not lose time and money chasing customers.
  • Get paid for the expertise you already provide clients: MSPs and VARs bend over backward to support their customers, often including setup and management expertise that never appears on the bill. With managed backup, your expert services are included in the monthly cost, so you always get paid for your time.

Boosts Customer Loyalty

  • Give your customers peace of mind: Knowing that their backup is being handled by an expert – at a predictable monthly cost – means customers do not have to lose sleep over data protection or deal with unexpected bills, or fear facing a data loss on their own. With Backup-as-a-Service, you are also equipped with the latest technologies and tools to protect your customers from threats to their data, alleviate compliance concerns, and help them quickly restore in the event of a data loss scenario.
  • Create stronger customer relationships: Moving from a break/fix relationship to proactive support and ongoing health checks helps foster trust and loyalty. This level of customer relationship management creates growth opportunities – with your existing customers and their network of contacts who could benefit from your expertise and support. When you save the day, your customers will become more loyal and more apt to recommend you to their network, giving you a foot in the door with the next client.

Simplifies Your Business

  • Simplify the sales conversation: Selling your expertise as part of a managed services bundle steers the conversation away from deciding which line items to remove to bring the upfront cost down. With Backup-as-a-Service their backup needs are met behind the scenes of the order, so they see a valuable, expert service for an affordable monthly price.
  • Remove setup and management headaches: Far from adding to your workload, Backup-as-a-Service can help reduce it. With everything managed from a central platform, it is much faster and easier to set up, monitor, and manage all your customers’ installations. You also do not need to support different hardware and software for each customer – you can focus on the tech you know and apply the same backup strategy across all your customers...unless of course, your client has unique needs that require a more custom setup.

How do I sell Managed Backup Services?

Lead generation is important for every Managed Service Provider, but these prospects only result in sales when the right message, positioning, and sales processes are put into action. 

Learn how to sell managed backup services →

  

Tips for Making the Switch to Managed Backup Services

When making the move to managed backup service, it is important to try not to be everything to everyone. It is exceedingly difficult to succeed with the mindset that you need to offer every service imaginable, especially early on with limited resources. Instead, look for themes and commonalities in the types of customers naturally attracted to your services and speak with existing clients to understand how they found you and why they chose to work with you. This should provide you with some insight into how you may be able to specialize as you progress.

Once you have decided to add managed backup services to your portfolio or change your business from a traditional (VAR) model to a Managed Service Provider (MSP) some planning is in order. Changes to your IT infrastructure, sales approach, and marketing strategies will all be required. The driving force behind all this is improving clients' lives, your ability to service them, and your organization's profitability.

Managed-Backup-Service-Offerings

Here are a few key factors to keep in mind when making the switch to offering managed backup services:

Sell Your Expertise (And Teach Customers to Value It)

Your customers are not buying a product from you – they are subscribing to your expertise. It is important to help them understand that your expertise in selecting, setting up, monitoring, and managing their backup software improves the security and availability of their data. Not to mention your expertise in recovering their data in a disaster scenario. Knowing they do not have to face a potential data loss on their own and they have an expert on their side to ensure a fast recovery should disaster strike cannot be overemphasized.

Standardize a Solution Set for All Your Customers

Having a standard set of solutions helps you become more focused. By supporting only certain software, such as only one anti-virus solution or only one vendor's hardware, you become proficient in implementation and troubleshooting. This helps you provide a higher standard of service and increases confidence in your offering, leading to an image that you are the expert and can confidently support your customers no matter what the issue. Even if you offer various service levels, provide a standard base of services you are comfortable with. Better service leads to greater customer satisfaction and more word-of-mouth referrals that help grow your business.

Reduce Redundancy and Costs

Increase-Backup-Service-Efficiencies

Before any major change, it is important to take the time to look closely at all your services and how they are being delivered. Examine the cost associated with each managed service and determine how to optimize it to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Are there manual procedures that could be automated? Do employees require new training, or are new employees required? What tools can help you administer services more seamlessly? Many businesses operate as something of a hybrid VAR-MSP as they add managed services. Do you have a transition timeline planned out that includes the elimination of redundant services?

Determine if You Will Focus on a Particular Vertical

In today's complex regulatory landscape, industries such as healthcare, financial services, government, and education face increasingly intricate compliance requirements. Both customers and VARs must demonstrate their commitment to maintaining compliance. However, in a break-fix model, where a client's backup solution may fall into disarray or become neglected, compliance becomes a concern.

TIP: By offering Backup-as-a-Service, VARs can equip themselves with the necessary tools to ensure end-to-end security certification. This proactive approach not only addresses compliance concerns but also sets a new industry standard for comprehensive data protection.


Prepare Your Clients for the Change

As services are added and consolidated, conversations with clients should center on how your new model can best work for them. There are certain steps that clients should take in advance when moving from local IT services to remotely managed IT services. Building up your relationships with migration assistance is in the MSP’s best interest. In fact, you may even want to offer existing customers a free introductory period to get them on board. Despite all your efforts, there may be a few client holdouts who are stubborn to change anything. In such cases, you will need to determine if keeping the client is in your best interest.

Take Advantage of Support from Your Software Vendor

Vendor-support

By offering Backup-as-a-Service, you should gain access to your vendor's technical team to provide in-depth knowledge and troubleshooting guidance whenever you require it.

Your vendor should also give you access to tools and training that make it much easier to manage customer backups. Look for vendors that provide reliable, responsive support to help you deliver the best possible managed backup services to your clients.

How do I Position My Managed Backup Services?

Despite the excellent prospects for success, many service providers are struggling to position their backup offerings. This is not due to a lack of potential, but rather a lack of ability to communicate the value behind these service offerings.

Learn how to position managed backup services to your customers →

  

Identify the Right Subscription Pricing Model

Pricing is always a sensitive subject, so the business relationship you have established with your existing clients and how you communicate with them about any changes to your pricing model is hugely important.

Examine Relationships

It’s time to put that “V” in “Value Added Reseller” to good work. Your top clients trust and respect your work, or you would not be here today. Build upon this success and talk with them about the forthcoming pricing transition so they know your intentions early on. Build relationships with key vendors that will enable these new managed services, and utilize their expertise and reputation while building your service offerings. Existing clients, and new clients alike, will be looking for stability and confidence as your business evolves.

Decide on Your MSP Pricing Model

The services you offer must match the needs of your current and future client base. An analysis of your costs to deliver services should help guide you in the right direction for choosing a specific pricing model. Also, carefully consider whether your existing customers can easily select a plan that will match their IT requirements.

Subscription-based pricing brings predictable costs for your customers and predictable revenue for you. But what is the best way to price a managed backup service?

Per User: Billing clients based on the number of users/per month.
Per Device: Billing based on the number of devices supported (servers, etc.) per/month.
Per Level: Billing clients based on the tier/bundle of services provided per month.

 

The way you price and offer managed backup doesn't need to be completely rigid. Whatever your business model, there will be an appropriate pricing structure for you.

TIP: There are various pricing models you could opt for, but the most important thing is that you first understand your costs – not just for hardware, software, and storage, but also for the time you spend on average with your customers.


Prepare the Bundle

If you are preparing a complete managed service you have probably already identified the best services to offer. Consider what common pain points you come across in your market. Common managed service offerings include Network Monitoring, Help Desk, Data Security, Data Storage, Data Protection and more. Try to avoid the trap of offering too much and appearing unfocused. Consider building packages that deliver maximum client value while adhering to best practice recommendations.

If you want to start with managed backup services through, there are several options to choose from:

  • Usage-based: Charge based on what’s actually used per device with the option of stipulating a minimum fee
  • With or without monitoring: Customers can choose to monitor the backup themselves or outsource that service to you


And once you are ready to add more service options, options like these might be interesting:

  • À la carte: Customers can choose the service they want from a menu of options
  • All-you-can-eat bundle: Every service included in a ’security bundle’ for a fixed price

TIP: While à la carte options give your customers the flexibility to tailor their service offerings to their needs, allowing them to pick and choose from an extensive list of services can do more harm than good by creating gaps in their coverage or your ability to manage them.

 

Commit to the Change

When your clients see you going through change, they are looking for continuity in their services, proactive communication, and a steady partner they can rely on. They will be looking for SLAs (Service-Level Agreements) that reflect your new proactive commitments. But moving from a reactive model to a proactive model requires education, for both your team and your clients. While some new services may be rolled out individually, bold confident decisions will be required when it comes to initiating a new pricing model. Once you have prepared, entering the pool slowly may cause a lot more discomfort than simply diving in.

How do I switch from Selling Software to Services?

For many value-added resellers (VARs), switching from selling software licenses and hardware to selling managed services as a subscription, is a significant change from a tried and trusted business model and there are some key takeaways to consider before diving in.

Learn how to position managed backup services to your customers →


  

Add Value and Differentiate Your Services from the Competition

Customers with substantial amounts of data need more than just software. A trusted Managed Service Provider can differentiate themselves by offering a broader range of backup services, thus attracting customers willing to pay higher prices for more customized levels of service. When designing product offerings and pricing structures, service providers should consider offering a more sophisticated level of service for businesses with specialized requirements to deliver that added value needed to meet their needs.

Deliver-value-to-your-customers

Examples that add value:

  1. Establish service level agreements
  2. Managing customer backups and outage notifications
  3. Provide personal and professional support
  4. On-site support, i.e., installation/setup at the customer site
  5. Offer recovery as a service

So, what can you offer your clients that will provide them with an impressive degree of personalization, compassion, and a greater sense of security?

As a provider of managed backup services, one thing you can start today is adhering to a set schedule in which client backups are reviewed.

Small-Business-Backup-Transparency

Transparency

Customers are investing in your services to protect their critical data. Transparency creates trust and a sense of accountability. Ensure that your clients clearly understand your testing schedule and procedures to give them faith in their backup integrity and your ability to recover their data in the event of a disaster. Transparency should extend to all branches within your business from pricing structure to how you manage data. This encourages customers to stick around and may even attract some new ones.

Health Checks

Schedule regular health checks between your IT support team and the client. Consider how regular health checks can pinpoint weak spots for compliance, productivity, and backup strategy. Not only are health checks good for catching problems early and making improvements, but they also offer a unique opportunity to strengthen relationships and show the client that their investment in you has added value.

Reports

Your business should provide your clients with reports with vital information such as backup statistics and when backups have last been reviewed. This helps MSPs maintain a presence and sets client expectations for achieving RTO and RPO recoverability goals. In a disaster scenario, the customer only needs to glance at the current report to understand what data is immediately restorable.

When it comes time to renew client contracts for managed backup, the customer should feel good about it. And with services like these, they will know that their MSP has their back with an ongoing process in place that ensures backup restorability and data continuity.

How Do I Migrate Clients to a New Backup Platform?

Whether your clients' existing backup platform lacks the support, speed, or flexibility they require, or whether they have simply outgrown their existing solution, sometimes change is necessary. To help you with migrating your customers over to a Backup-as-a-Service solution, this checklist outlines key steps that help ensure a smooth process. 

Download our Backup-as-a-Service migration guide →

  

Avoiding Pitfalls and Overcoming Hurdles to Selling Managed Services

When IT providers decide to start selling managed services it requires changes to their sales approach, marketing strategy, and even IT infrastructure. Whether transitioning from a different business model or starting fresh as a new MSP, numerous decisions and challenges inevitably lay ahead. You may have already hit a few roadblocks while working towards your goals, but we are here to help you avoid pitfalls moving forward. As you grow, most mistakes are simply part of a learning process, but all too often they can cause severe damage – whether financial, strategic, or reputational. Being new to managed services offers the advantage of learning from seasoned MSP veterans who have endured hardships, so you do not have to.

Weak Market Position

The importance of developing clearly defined offerings for a target audience cannot be overemphasized. New MSPs are often tempted to offer everything to everyone, which is a recipe for failure. Adding service offerings requires more complex billing, additional technologies to support, training, and establishing and juggling additional vendor relationships. The answer may be to start with a single offering like Backup-as-a-Service and grow as you are ready to take on more.

TIP: Any solution you offer needs to correspond closely with the needs of your potential customers. Look for the commonalities in the clients that naturally gravitate towards you for ideas on how to become the expert in a niche.


Carefully consider what services to focus on and outline them clearly in your Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to illustrate the scope of your services and set the right expectations.

Proactive-vs-reactive

Reactive vs. Proactive

Perhaps the greatest argument for MSPs is the alignment of goals with the client in preventing incidents from occurring rather than reacting to them. So, it is surprising that some MSPs get hyper-focused on the technology and tend to forget that their clients are constantly being marketed by the competition. If you are not actively highlighting how you are saving your clients from disaster and demonstrating how you save them money, your apathy is sure to be rewarded with a cancellation of services. MSPs with a BDR service should be monitoring data use and reporting back to customers, as well as testing data restores regularly for a deep understanding of recovery time following an emergency. Ongoing communication with clients is paramount to retention.

Inflexible Vendor Solutions

Plug and play sounds great, until the proprietary device required by your backup vendor fails, and you are stuck waiting for a response from support. MSPs that offer services like Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) may regret contracts with vendors that require the purchase of a branded hardware box/appliance or have similarly strict hardware requirements. MSPs will be held fully responsible for client data if things go south and thus must ensure that vendor solutions allow freedom of choice in hardware. MSPs require maximum control to upgrade and scale as their client demands grow and can efficiently repurpose phased-out equipment with a more flexible vendor solution.

Complex Vendor Billing

Flexibility should extend to pricing so that MSPs have a choice in how to be billed rather than being dumped into a restrictive price bucket. While many vendors' per-user billing methods seem reasonable at first, MSPs often end up paying far more than they need. With endpoint backup taking off, the purchase of per-user licenses that include a set amount of cloud storage can leave MSPs paying for terabytes of unnecessary but included cloud storage space.

TIP: Seek out solutions that charge for your actual usage. Monitoring data usage should be easily accessible through the solution so that you always know exactly what to expect.


Backup-compliance

Regulatory Weakness

Now more than ever it is clear that our services are no longer limited by physical location. Your potential client down the street could opt to go with an MSP on the other side of the country rather than staying with you. Furthermore, that MSP may be in a region with stricter data privacy regulations. Therefore, MSPs must operate at the highest compliance standards to remain competitive.

TIP: MSPs who position themselves as compliance experts, understanding the nuances of industry-specific requirements (HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FINRA, etc.), will be able to guide their clients through rough waters and differentiate themselves from competitors.


A Race to the Bottom

While the lowest advertised price may lure the average consumer, commercial customers often require a more sophisticated level of service. Competing with other MSPs in a “race to the bottom” in terms of price forces you into providing a low-value service, comparable to a budget airline. The experience of successful Managed Service Providers tells us that business customers seek out knowledgeable Managed Service Providers to implement IT strategies that leverage technology to grow their bottom line. This same customer group is turned off by services that are interpreted as low-value, and this is precisely the target group with the highest growth potential.

TIP: Creating a clear and simple pricing structure, helps clients select a plan that matches their IT requirements.


Understanding Partnerships

Just as your clients extend their capabilities through your services, so too must the MSP make strategic partnership decisions to support growth. This means taking time to review pros and cons but also putting potential partners through their paces. You cannot risk having your service throttled, or your support relegated to a low priority once the vendor agreement has been signed. The right partner can even be an extension of your technical sales team, working beside you to close new business and fill important gaps in your organization. Test out support (response time, location, quality), check their credibility with similar reference accounts, and even reach out to upper management to see how seriously they are taking this new relationship.

How Do I Avoid MSP Backup Pitfalls?

We surveyed our most successful Managed
Service Providers using NovaBACKUP Managed Backup and asked them about the common traps and pitfalls that they have witnessed in their market, which could be cleverly avoided.

Learn how to avoid MSP backup pitfalls →

  

Hidden MSP Backup Costs to Watch Out For

When looking for managed backup software, the right solution is determined not only by hardware and software, but also by the manpower required to manage IT needs and even third-party services. More importantly, it's important to understand all of the costs associated with your backup solution of choice so you don't have any unpleasant surprises when you look at your next bill.

Here are a few unexpected costs to be on the lookout for:

Cloud Storage-Bucket-Only Plans

Typically, MSPs only want to pay for the storage they need. Yet, we commonly see backup vendors aggressively pushing storage-bucket-only plans, forcing MSPs to pay for a set amount of storage per user. This can result in a significant amount of underutilized storage space, which comes at a cost. As an MSP, this model forces you to pass down this cost to your clients or risk hurting your bottom line. When IT budgets shrink, this is an inefficient use of scarce resources.

Storage-buckets-vs-Compressed-cloud-storage

Unexpected Charges

MSPs may feel misled by their backup vendor when they experience unexpected charges. Contract requirements, per-device fees, and even unexpected data charges can be problematic. Are you paying for storage utilized pre- or post-compression? Common sense would assume cost calculation after the data has been compressed, but this is not always the case. Other similarly overlooked billing details are a common headache for MSPs. Complex vendor pricing can create billing misunderstandings and frustrations.

TIP: Being armed with all the right questions to ask when evaluating backup solutions can save time and frustration down the road. So do your research and take the time to jot down questions to equip yourself.


Requirements for Cloud Hosting and Proprietary Hardware

A backup vendor should allow the MSP to self-host their client data or use a hosting provider for their clients' offsite cloud storage based on their particular environment needs. Imagine you compare the costs of hosting client data yourself, versus having someone else host it. Or you find out later that your preferred hardware and storage methods will not work. Or worse, they require you to purchase proprietary devices that can only be serviced by the backup vendor during an emergency.

If you are unable to deploy backup services using the technologies of your choice, then meeting the demands of clients is going to prove difficult in the event of a data-loss incident. Research hardware, software, and bandwidth requirements up-front and avoid solutions that require the use of proprietary hardware. Look for hardware-agnostic solutions for maximum flexibility.

Upcharges for Additional Features

You expect to have the features you need when a client needs them. However, many backup vendors charge additional fees for agents to protect SQL databases, business applications, virtual machines, and even for unlocking different types of backup storage. How can anyone anticipate the budget requirements until an emergency is at hand? Disaster recovery, bare metal restores, and local backup must be a standard part of your backup solution package.

Lack of Specialization

Many MSPs who opt for a backup solution as part of a larger security suite, eventually realize that important backup features have been implemented as more of an afterthought. When pressing their vendor for a development roadmap, they find that resources are focused on offerings other than data protection. The market contains a few security behemoths that claim to “do it all” but this does not necessarily assure a specialization in all things backup.

TIP: Relying on a single vendor for all security may not be in an MSPs best interest. While some excellent security suites exist, many modern backup solutions are developed to work seamlessly with other vendor technologies. This offers MSPs the freedom to utilize applications from highly specialized providers who are 100% dedicated to a single mission (backup, AV, ransomware protection, etc.).


Support-response-time

Deployment Support and Response Times

Estimating the time, effort, and resources required to properly deploy and maintain a new backup solution can be a challenge. Often support assistance is meticulous in the trial phase but becomes more elusive after the contract is signed. In an industry where service is king, it is critical to understand what support resources will be available to you as a customer and how responsive that support team is to your support requests. Support teams may be in distant locations, making regular communication difficult.

Lack of Compliance Training

The adherence to compliance training and the responsibilities for backup security must be thoroughly understood by both parties. Every vendor claims their solution can be used to achieve compliance with HIPAA and other industry regulations, but the responsibility of proper integration still falls upon the MSP. Few vendors dedicate resources towards specialized training to guarantee that they can provide a solution that meets strict regulatory requirements.

TIP: The burden of unexpected expenses can be prevented by partnering with vendors that provide total transparency into their solution requirements and flexibility in how their solutions are deployed so do your research, ask questions and pick a vendor that is honest and transparent with pricing.

How Do I Avoid Hidden Costs of Offering MSP Backup?

Don't be caught off guard by surprising costs you didn't know to look for or to ask about. Prepare yourself by learning from experts in the field who have learned the hard way so you don't have to.

Learn more about how to avoid hidden costs of MSP backup →

  

Understanding Your Clients’ Backup Needs

First, you will need to determine your customers’ backup requirements, especially regarding data recoverability. You may find it helpful to have your clients categorize their data into business-critical, important but not business-critical, and non-critical data. This may be a moving target. However, establishing a process to quickly identify, categorize, and secure new data sources as the business changes will help you navigate this key step with your clients.

Recovery Objectives

You should know how much data your client can afford to lose, and still return to business quickly. Determining a customer's loss tolerance is a key part of building a backup strategy. For example, while cloud storage enables your client to restore organizational data from anywhere, that does not mean that all data will be accessible to the client immediately. The client must be able to express to you the number of minutes between discomfort and outright catastrophe when it comes to the loss of critical systems.

You will need to understand typical backup scenarios and your customers’ RTO and RPO expectations.

RTO (Recovery Time Objective) refers to how quickly you need your clients' systems back online before putting their business in jeopardy.

RPO (Recovery Point Objective) refers to how much data your clients can afford to lose without risking their company's future.

Recovery-Objectives-2


If you are backing up a client with rapidly changing data, putting a backup with frequent intervals into place may be critical. Also, RPO may vary based on whether the data loss event occurs during business hours or after business hours.

In a disaster scenario, a company’s downtime can be quantified with an actual dollar amount using several popular methods. Seeing this number in writing goes a long way in getting a client to grasp the importance of implementing proper backup procedures.

QUESTIONS TO ASK:

  • What systems and data is the business unable to function without?
  • What data can affect legal and regulatory requirements?
  • How quickly must these critical systems be brought back online?
  • How quickly must all data be restored?


Matching Data to Storage

With data classified and storage options identified, you can match appropriate systems with the best backup target. Through storage tiering, you can match the most vital data to the fastest storage devices, and less critical data using more affordable options. This may even include recycling older storage technology that could still be used for less important data.

It’s also important to consider whether your services and the client infrastructure will be able to support the movement of data between storage tiers. If your backup services are unable to meet the client's RPO/RTO requirements, then you have established a “recovery gap”. Whether stored locally, in an offsite data center, or in the cloud, the client will need to have the right set of expectations for restore time. (Read more about setting customer expectations.)

QUESTIONS TO ASK:

  • What is the state of all on-site and offsite storage infrastructure?
  • If RPO/RTOs cannot be met, is there an additional budget to invest in storage infrastructure?
  • What geographical or regulatory requirements must be met for backup data?


You will also need to identify customers that have specific regulatory requirements your services will need to meet. When you have a good understanding of what your customers expect from a managed backup service, you can define the best way to have all of them follow the 3-2-1 rule (three copies of data, on two media types, with one held offsite).

3-2-1-Backup-Rule

Access and Training

As the MSP, all responsibilities for backup may be delegated to you, but sometimes a client backup administrator will also exist. Depending on their abilities, the backup process may need to be fully automated or alternately allow for more flexibility and manual customization. You must be the judge of what the client needs to feel a sense of security and control of their data.

Businesses with a high number of offsite and roaming employees may also pose a challenge. These workers may be more likely to inadvertently violate security protocols or access unsecured devices, leading to an increased security risk. MSPs must take a close look at both the number and type of employees that operate outside of the traditional office environment, especially if sensitive data is becoming more widely dispersed. Furthermore, employees should undergo regular disaster recovery drills to reinforce security policies and limit the risk of data loss.

QUESTIONS TO ASK:

  • Who will be in the role of monitoring and testing the health of backups?
  • Who will be in the role of performing disaster recovery drills?
  • How many employees are remote/roaming, and where are they saving critical data?
  • What kind of security awareness training have employees undergone?

How Do I Build a Backup Strategy?

Discover key steps to building a comprehensive backup and recovery strategy that will not only ensure that your clients' data can be recovered in the event of a disaster but will also satisfy a significant portion of their regulatory requirements when compliance auditors are at the door.

Download our backup strategy guide →

  

On-site vs. Offsite Backup Storage

The whole point of backups is to ensure that your data can be quickly recovered during a disaster. The best backup solutions support the 3-2-1 backup strategy, providing the best chance of recovery while aligning with most regulatory requirements.

Local backup utilizes on-site storage devices to store backups on premises and are often managed and supported by a business' dedicated IT team, however they can also be managed by an IT service provider. On-site backups offer control and flexibility over backups and security measures, with the convenience of a fast restore. But this also means investing in hardware and management resources.

Offsite backup protects your data against environmental or other factors that could damage an in-house storage method such as fire, floods, ransomware attacks, hardware failure, or theft. With offsite backup, your data is stored in a secondary location, such as cloud storage, that has multiple layers of protection and can easily scale to meet your business needs.

What is Cloud Backup?

Cloud backup is a type of offsite backup to cloud-based servers hosted by cloud storage providers (public or private) or hosted in your own data center. Cloud backup allows customers to store a secondary copy of their data at a remote location.

Types of Cloud Backup

There are several types of cloud backup storage, and understanding the distinct types of cloud storage will help you learn what type best fits your business needs.

Cloud-Storage-Options

Private Cloud

Private cloud (also known as enterprise cloud) is cloud computing that is dedicated and accessible by a single organization as its own private cloud, thus creating greater control, security, and privacy while delivering the agility, scalability, and self-service found in a public cloud. With private cloud storage, an organization is responsible for the cost and accountability of building out the private cloud storage, managing and maintaining the IT infrastructure, and private cloud software required to support the private cloud. While private data cloud storage is often single-tenant, some private cloud platforms offer a multi-tenant architecture, allowing each tenant (group, department, or office) to safely share their server space while each tenant's data remains inaccessible to all other tenants.

Public-cloud

Public Cloud

Public cloud is cloud computing that utilizes an independent third-party, such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, to host, manage and maintain the storage of your data in a multi-tenant environment that shares resources with other clients in the cloud. By pooling resources, the public cloud can offer affordable, pay-as-you-go online data storage that can easily scale to meet your business needs. The biggest concerns with the public cloud are security, reliability, and regulatory compliance.

TIP: While public and private cloud offer their own set of pros and cons, hybrid cloud backup allows for the best of both worlds: you can store non-sensitive data in a public cloud while keeping confidential data private.


Hosting-Data

Cost of Self-Hosting vs. Managed Hosting for MSPs

The decision of whether to host data locally on-premises or to select managed hosting, should not be taken lightly. Your solution will have its own unique set of requirements, benefits, and drawbacks. So, what path is best for you? Let us dive into the factors that affect MSP costs for hosting your client backup and disaster recovery data.

 

Self-Hosted

Managed Hosting

Infrastructure

All hardware and software are purchased and managed in your location, including servers, data storage, network connections, and load balancing.

Allows you to bypass the large upfront storage costs and networking hardware.

Flexibility

Offers no dependence on third-party staff for MSP to access data. Applications and services can be balanced in line with your hardware resources on a granular level.

The ability to provision new servers quickly makes it highly scalable. Without the onsite hosting infrastructure to worry about, businesses can more easily scale their business up/down based on market demands.

Maintenance

You manage (applications, upgrades, backup, patching, etc.) and monitor internally by trained team members. Potential threats must be constantly monitored; however, immediate action can be taken due to accessibility. The potential for downtime depends upon the unique safeguards implemented at the location.

Managed hosting, as the name implies, will include your OS setup and ongoing maintenance (upgrades, service packs) of the infrastructure. Depending on your plan, some level of monitoring and support is expected. Hosted solutions often advertise a 99% uptime guarantee.

Staffing

Additional team members and training will be required to maintain an on-premises solution. This can be costly, especially when accounting for turnover.

The quality of staff dealing with your account (and data) will vary based on the provider and your priority level. Having an outside party handle hosting services frees up your internal team to focus on the most important tasks at hand.

 

Making a direct comparison between self-hosted and managed hosting of backup data is not easy, and most MSPs end up with some type of hybrid solution between the two.

How Can I Leverage Cloud Backup?

When backups are performed regularly to both local and cloud storage devices, administrators retain both the convenience of fast local access as well as the redundancy of an offsite copy for disaster recovery purposes. 

Learn how to leverage cloud backup →

  

Growing New Business for Your Managed Backup Service

Growing new businesses often requires filling your MSP sales funnel as part of your sales process. A typical MSP sales process might flow from lead generation to initial contact, presentation, demo, and finally, an attempt to close the sale. MSPs that have not made sufficient effort to build a strong relationship with potential clients, especially in the initial stages, will find their win/lose ratio sorely lacking. This is especially true with data backup, as trust in the support team behind the technology solution is so important. Connecting with your prospects on a personal level, while also communicating the value you will provide their organization is what it often takes to seal the deal.

Service-Relationship-Building

Essential Elements to Building Trust with Prospects to Close New Business and Create Long-Lasting Relationships

Organizations these days have so much information coming at them. If you were able to establish an initial meeting, they know enough about your company to consider you a potential partner. Let them know what you are all about, but the client should be doing most of the talking. Encourage them to discuss problems they have had with prior vendors and find out what their expectations are and what their plans for growth look like. Follow a general philosophy of 80% listening and 20% asking investigative questions. Pinpointing a specific way in which you can differentiate yourself from the competition is helpful in early discussions.

BACKUP SALES TIP: Find out what is important to the prospect regarding types of data, what is most critical to access in a disaster scenario, and their understanding of regulatory compliance.


Salespeople get a bad rap for being dishonest, and most do not fit that “used car salesman” stereotype. But to close a sale confidently, a prospect must trust and have faith in you. Honor your commitments and promises, for phone calls, meeting purposes and even meeting length from day one. Demonstrate real empathy for the problems your prospects are facing and follow up with your approach for a resolution. Your approach might not always match their expectation, and that is fine if you can show the reasoning behind your methods.

BACKUP SALES TIP: Give the prospect an example of when you took responsibility for a mistake, owned up to it, adjusted, and improved.


According to the Harvard Business Review, B2B buyers rated just 18% of salespeople as advisors whom they respect. The primary reason as you might expect was that salespeople come off as focused only on revenue and generate too much pressure to purchase early on. Conversely, a prospect is willing to respect a salesperson’s initiative once they have built a close connection. A salesperson must respect the process that a business goes through to make a purchase, and never talk down to a prospect.

BACKUP SALES TIP: Your understanding of their business exhibits sincerity. Review blog posts, company news, and even social media profiles of your meeting guests. Demonstrate knowledge of their industry and the regulations they must abide by.


Content

Do you know what interests your prospect? Identify the technologies, regulations, and trends that the prospect considers important and share relevant content and insights that they will enjoy - without asking for anything in return. You are trying to develop a relationship beyond being a “sales rep.” Not only will it open the door to conversations surrounding your services, but it can build reciprocity. This, in turn, builds trust.

BACKUP SALES TIP: Highlight a recent customer success story (Ransomware catastrophe averted, downtime avoided, corrupt data restored) for a client that closely resembles the environment of your prospect.


Audit / Assessment

Demonstrate your abilities by providing a free assessment of their environment. This will provide deeper insight into their needs and an opportunity to explain how your services will solve problems, provide value, and save them money. If they are not ready for your services, you have strategically positioned yourself as a valuable, enthusiastic resource that can help them reach their goals.

BACKUP SALES TIP: Many organizations offer a light assessment version with a paid intensive-audit option. Depending on your type of client and the time investment required, this deep dive can further reveal shortcomings that your services resolve.


Technical-expertise

Technical Expertise

Your style and presentation should match that of the audience. So, while not applicable to every meeting, enlisting the help of a technical specialist or two has potentially high value. These experts should understand your technologies end-to-end and be able to explain how they apply to the prospects' environment. Beyond just being a source of technical advice, these resources should inspire confidence. If problems arise during the deployment of services, it should be clear that their expert problem-solving skills are sufficient to provide a workable solution that meets your needs.

BACKUP SALES TIP: Your backup expert should be able to gather intelligence about the prospect’s needs, relate their industry to presentations, and ensure a successful backup services trial.


References

Customer testimonials are often cited as the most valuable content for establishing brand confidence, however, this is only true if it is relevant to the prospect. Using great customer references can increase the chance of closing a sale if the referrer comes across as genuine and demonstrates how a problem was solved. While references alone may not be enough, once the major roadblocks to success have been neutralized, they can be used effectively as part of your closing process.

BACKUP SALES TIP: Offer the prospect a chance to speak with one or two of your customers and ask what they expect from the call. It may reveal what is required to close the sale.


It is easy for Managed Service Providers to focus most of their efforts on retaining customers and delivering quality services. If you are successful in this area, your prospects already know you have the technical ability. An equal amount of energy must be put into building prospect trust to close new businesses. Following these methods will go a long way in taking your relationships, and your profits to the next level.

What Are the Latest Backup and Recovery Strategies?

We explore the latest backup and recovery strategies that create reliable data protection across devices and locations. Our backup experts share their secrets on how to create a backup and recovery strategy that meets your unique needs and that ensures data is quickly recoverable in the event of a data loss scenario.

Watch webinar on how to elevate your backup and recovery strategy →

  

Selecting a Backup-as-a-Service Vendor to Partner With

The vendor you select for Backup-as-a-Service should provide a central management platform allowing you to set up backup jobs remotely, easily monitor quotas and job statuses, and restore customer data. It should also offer reporting and notifications to keep you aware of what is happening with your customers and check that their backups are working (and if not, why).

Another key factor in choosing a vendor is based on how easy they are to work with. The best vendors will offer straightforward licensing and help you find the right balance of local and cloud storage for your customers. They will also give you the support you need to solve problems quickly, with in-house experts who understand your business and are available when you need them.

Backup-partner

To compete with low-cost providers and multinational corporations, Managed Service Providers should focus on their unique data protection services and personalized support. That means, the backup software vendor you partner with is important to your success. Reselling backup software or providing cloud storage may be easy. But ensuring that terabytes of mission-critical data are available requires a higher level of accountability, that you will need to hold your partners to.

TIP: While low upfront costs may seem attractive at first, if you are not properly supported, low costs will not help you in the long run. A software vendor’s ability to provide the support you need to develop a backup service offering should become apparent during the evaluation of their solution. So, make sure you test out their support.


Reliable software partners provide a high level of service, which should include the following:

  • Close collaboration between you and the vendor
  • Phone and online/email support in English (and in your time zone)
  • Additional support during installation, setup, and business model implementation
  • Dedicated account management with a clear escalation process
  • Help you define additional services such as local or cloud backup implementation

By choosing the business model that works best for you and your customers, positioning yourself correctly, and working with a reliable software partner, you can run a managed backup service with excellent prospects for the future.

How Do I Find the Best MSP Backup Solution?

Managed backup software designed for MSPs must be scalable, secure, easy to manage, and flexible enough to adapt to the different needs of your customers.

NovaBACKUP has designed a managed backup solution that focuses on making life easier for system integrators, Managed Service Providers, resellers, and more.

Check out NovaBACKUP Managed Backup services →

Contributors:

Nate-Fouarge-48

Nate Fouarge

MSP Backup Expert

Adam_photo_sm_300

Adam Stuflick

MSP Backup Expert

Sean-Curiel-profile

Sean Curiel

Topic Specialist

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