The math is simple: to keep BDR margins high, keep costs low. But how?
eFolder partner and BDR expert Lloyd Wolf breaks down the critical components of a highly reliable and low cost BDR solution.
Webinar: eFolder Expert Series: BDR Pain Relief with Lloyd Wolf
1. BDR Pain Relief: Five Ways to Reduce
Your BDR Support Costs
Ted Hulsy
VP of Marketing, eFolder
415-235-6087
ehulsy@efolder.net
Lloyd Wolf
CEO, Wolf Consulting
www.WolfConsulting.com
Hello. My name is Ted Hulsy. I am Vice President of Marketing at eFolder and your host for today’s event.Welcome to the eFolder Expert Series. This webinar series brings together experts from eFolder’s staff and partner community for deep dive discussions on key service and technical topics.Today we are joined by Lloyd Wolf, President and CEO of Wolf Consulting in Pittsburgh, PA. In just a moment, I will further introduce Lloyd.
Before we go through the agenda, let’s cover a few house keeping items.Today’s session is being recorded. The recorded version of the webinar will be made available for a limited time to the partners that are registered for the event. We will also make copies of the slides available those that attended the event.With over 180 people registered for the event, we have put all participants in listen only mode. You can enjoy the audio portion of today’s event by either streaming it your computer or by dialing in over the phone. Questions are strongly encouraged throughout. We have planned a special Q&A section at end of today’s discussion, but you may submit as we go along and we will try to address them on the fly.Now let me introduce our guest:Lloyd Wolf is President and CEO of Wolf Consulting, Inc. - a Managed Services Provider located just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. The company has been in business for 23 years, and specializes in providing computer networking and IT consulting services to small & mid-size businesses. Wolf Consulting has 17 employees. The company is a member of HTG Peer Groups, uses Kaseya for its RMM tool, and uses ConnectWise for its PSA tool. Lloyd was born and raised in Pittsburgh. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as various technical certifications from Microsoft, SonicWALL and other industry vendors. Welcome Lloyd. I am going to start out with a brief introduction to BDR services and then turn things over to Lloyd. Lloyd will dig into the key things partners need to do to keep your BDR support costs low and your profits high. And we will conclude with a special section for your questions.
Organizations have to defend against three kinds of business interruptions:First, everyday disasters are incredibly common. Hardware failures, especially disk drive failures, occur all the time. Users delete or lose files. Corrupted software installs are common. Human error is a key contributor to everyday disasters.Natural disasters or site-wide disasters are far less common. They do happen however and the consequences for a business can be deadly. Fire or property insurance always seems like a needless expense, until you need it. The same goes for backup and disaster recovery preparedness. In some parts of the country – say in the Gulf Coast or in Tornado Alley – the likelihood of a site wide disaster is even higher. Most businesses can not survive the complete loss of their critical business data. If customer records, financials and accounting records are completely lost, most businesses would have a hard time recovering from such an event. Lastly, businesses need to guard against any kind of system downtime. In today’s competitive market, the fast eat the slow. Businesses can’t afford for their employees to be down, out of touch, or unproductive. Servers, workstations, and mobile assets need to operate at peak performance so knowledge workers, salespeople, engineers, and support personnel can get their day to day jobs done well. If disasters do occur, recovery has to be fast and complete.
This diagram provides a simple overview of the main functions of aBDR installation. First, the imaging software running on the production servers captures an initial image of the server, along with incremental image backups, and stores them on the local BDR appliance.The BDR appliance acts both as a storage server and as a standby server, in the event the production server fails. The BDR appliance, leveraging virtualization technology, can bring up the image of the downed server and operate just like production server. Since both the data and complete server configuration is backed up, this on-site recovery can happen in minutes, not hours or days. Recovery of single files and folders or Microsoft Exchange items can also be performed from the appliance.To deliver additional protection, a complete BDR solution backs up the server images daily to the cloud, providing extraprotection from on-site disasters. The client or partner can recover the server images from the cloud, via a download or shipment of a hard drive with the server images.Or, partners may elect to recover the servers in the cloud if the vendor supports cloud-based virtualization and recovery. Cloud-based recovery is a vital feature if the client needs fast recovery and protection from virtually any kind of disaster.
Ok. That was a brief introduction to BDR. Now let me turn it over to our expert, Lloyd Wolf.Lloyd’s notes:Lloyd first met Jan Spring of eFolder in 2010 at one of the HTG quarterly meetings. His company had been standardized on the Symantec Backup Exec software. While Backup Exec had provided reliable backups, he was concerned that his clients didn’t have some backup & restore features that other provider’s were offering – such as restore to dissimilar hardware, fast virtualization options, and automated offsite transfer. He was concerned that a competitor offering these types of services may have an opportunity to approach his clients. But on the other hand, he had tried another vendor’s BDR product in his own office for in-house use and evaluation, and had struggled with trying to get it to work. In early 2011, Lloyd decided he needed a BDR solution, and did an exhaustive analysis of 12 vendors. eFolder came out on top in that evaluation.
Introducing eFolder BDR.eFolder BDR is a complete solution designed for MSPs, solution providers, and VARs. eFolder BDR is a backup and disaster recovery service that delivers unparalleled data protection and business continuity to demanding business users. eFolder BDR is a service that combines intelligent software for image-based, bare-metal backups; online backup to the cloud; an on-site appliance for near instant virtualization of backed up servers; and emergency in-the-cloud virtualization for worst case scenarios. eFolder BDR delivers a complete business continuity solution, by not only protecting client data, but guaranteeing uptime and resiliency for mission critical servers and applications.
This diagram provides a simple overview of the main functions of an eFolder BDR installation.First, the imaging software running on the production servers captures an initial image of the server, along with incremental image backups, and stores them on the eFolder BDR.The eFolder BDR appliance acts both as a storage server and as a standby server, in the event the production server fails. The eFolder BDR, leveraging virtualization technology, can bring up the image of the downed server and operate just like production server. Since both the data and complete server configuration is backed up, this on-site recovery can happen in minutes, not hours or days.To deliver additional protection, eFolder backs up the server images daily to the eFolder Storage Cloud, providing cloud based protection from on-site disasters. The client or partner can recover the server images from the cloud, via a download or shipment of a hard drive with the server images.Or, partners may elect to recover the servers in the cloud with the eFolder Continuity Cloud. This approach provides the same benefits of on-site virtualization, but instead leverages the eFolder Continuity Cloud.
[Ted will close out the last two slides, before formal Q&A]eFolderhelps partners adapt to a fast changing technology landscape. Partners can leverage the power of the cloud, while managing the natural migration of infrastructure from on-premises to cloud-based deployments.With eFolder’s unique business model, partners control the client relationship. eFolder allows partners build unique and differentiated offerings, with your own service levels, pricing, and branding.eFolder partners create thriving businesses based upon managed services that generate predictable, monthly recurring revenue. Partners are able to keep their operating costs low through reliable service performance, automation, and integration with their PSA systems. And the result is consistent ongoing profitability.
If eFolder sounds right for you, contact us today. Qualifying VARs, solution providers, and MSPs can try any eFolder service at no cost.Thank you for joining us.
Now let me take your through some of the key features that clients will care about.eFolder BDR includes the intelligent software, the appliance, and the cloud infrastructure to make the whole solution work.Not all cloud solutions are created equal. eFolder engineers its software and infrastructure for highly reliable operation and the utmost in data protection. Behind the scenes, the eFolder infrastructure is quietly doing its job to protect the privacy and the integrity of the client data. Military grade encryption is used to ensure that client data is encrypted before upload to the cloud; only the client or their designated agent can use the encryption key to unlock the data. Once the data is in the eFolder cloud, eFolder applies propriety technology defend against “silent data corruption,” ensuring that when recovery needed the data will be sound and useable. Granular file recovery is an important feature as well. Clients can perform “quick mount” operations to recover individual files and folders from an image of the server. Included software tools also permit the easy recovery of Exchange items, such as individual emails, attachments or mailboxes.Lastly, eFolder service includes the eFolder Continuity Cloud, enabling partners or clients to recover servers in the cloud to keep an organization up and running even in the case of site-wide disasters.
There are various features of the eFolder BDR that will be appreciated especially by partners.eFolder BDR hardware is unique. eFolder has engineered its appliances to meet the demanding performance criteria of partners that want high performance and highly reliable operation. Reliability translates into lower operational costs and higher profits for partners driving a managed services model.eFolder uses state-of-the-art hardware and provides partners with a five different models to choose from. Storage and memory options are highly configurable and field upgradeable, allowing you to preserve your hardware investments and upgrade clients as needed.eFolder BDR is also flexible enough to meet the advanced requirements of any partner. Replication features enable additional levels of redundancy and permit partners to deliver faster recovery options for clients. eFolder Backup can be combined to deliver file-level backup, for a comprehensive solution from a single vendor.Lastly, remote monitoring and management, along with ConnectWise PSA integration, helps partners better serve their clients and keep their recurring costs low.
eFolder BDR flexibility extends to replication.Partners can replicate images from one eFolder BDR location to another, giving the organization a hot standby capability. In the event of a site-wide disaster or complete loss of connectivity to a location, the replicated images can be brought up quickly with on-site virtualization in the additional location.
eFolder BDR can allow partners to provide even higher levels of business continuity to their growing client base.The replication capability can also be leveraged by partners to deliver fast RTO service level agreements to clients. Partners can provision a large, high capacity BDR in their own data center and replication multiple client BDRs to this location, allowing the partner to virtualize and recover any of the client servers in their own private cloud environment.
eFolder BDR is flexible.Partners may “build their own” BDR by procuring their own brand of hardware and licensing the key software assets from eFolder to craft their own solution. Overall, the economics of the solution will be similar. The partner will need to invest more labor in crafting their own solution, however, this permits the partner to leverage their own preferred brand of hardware.
eFolder BDR is superior to many different BDR options on the market.Unlike Zenith Infotechand Datto, eFolder BDR deployments are field upgradeable. eFolder guarantees availability for the latest version of StorageCraft software tools; you will never find yourself stuck in a back rev scenario.eFolder’s silent data corruption prevention technology sets its cloud infrastructure apart from the competition. You get peace of mind, knowing your backed up data is safe from corruption.ConnectWise PSA integration saves partners countless hours on service and support. Automation, efficiency, and better labor utilization are all key to increasing managed services profits.Lastly, granular file recovery is essential to helping clients quickly recover individual files or Exchange items during those everyday disasters.