What MSPs Do For Backup
Backups are critical for every client because they affect their ability to do business . They protect against human errors , hardware failure , virus attacks , power failure , and natural disasters . When done correctly , they save time and money . This month , we spoke with MSPs about what they look for in a backup solution and what their go-to solutions are .
Chris Hegg , founder of Phoenix Technology Consulting , gained a rich background in security while serving in the Navy , doing security control assessments for the National Security Agency , and teaching certification for ethical hacking . Today , he serves clients in the health care industry throughout Texas and is the lead investigator for the state of Texas in major ransomware cases .
Matt Auld , vice president of Cloud Services for Peak UpTime , has managed backups for 25-plus years at the enterprise level for Fortune 100 companies and for small-business clients . Operating since 1984 , Peak has a wealth of knowledge about backups . Peak offers cloud-managed services including disaster recovery , platform as a service ( PaaS ), and desktop as a service ( DaaS ). They work with clients in the U . S . and five additional countries .
What ’ s Important In A Backup Solution ?
To ensure clients and the MSP are protected , with only minimal disruption should an incident occur , several boxes must be checked when choosing a backup solution , including :
The Versatility Of On-Premise And Off-Premise Storage “ We ’ re looking for flexibility and ease of immediate restoration for on-site , but also the
capability for off-site ,” Hegg said . “ And we want to make sure our data is segmented from the attack vector .”
Ability To Offload To Multiple Locations
Peak has six data centers where they store data , and they keep copies of backups at more than one of those locations .
Quick And Easy To Manage Restoral
You must have the ability to do a quick turnaround , especially in the event of hardware failures . During the 2021 winter storm in Texas when supply chains were shot , Hegg had a client lose power , which fried one of their hard drives . “ We need to make sure our solution has the bandwidth to offload that amount of data , or the organization you ’ re working with can store it all on a hard drive and ship that hard drive to put it in the cloud ,” Hegg explained . “ During the Texas storm , we couldn ’ t even receive something from Amazon for five days . But we were able to get a hard drive on-site and get them back online before midday , which meant minimal downtime for the client . You must know the entity supporting you has the functionality , ease of use , ease of accessing it , and ease of restoral .”
Capability To Support Short-Term And Long- Term Retention “ Short-term retention is a minimum of 90 days ,” Auld said . “ We keep up to 120 months as long-term retention . The length of time we keep data is primarily driven by the business owners . For example , their legal department may want to keep it for lawsuits or to be able to go back to emails for 10 years .”
22 | MSPSuccessMagazine . com • VOLUME 3 ISSUE 5