SingleHop, a global provider of hosted IT infrastructure, cloud computing and managed services , is rolling out a new Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) portfolio. The offerings surfaced amid the VeeamOn 2017 conference in New Orleans.
The DRaaS options are designed to cover a range of IT budgets and objectives, the company says. Moreover, SingleHop says the services are backed by one of the most aggressive SLAs (service level agreements) on the market. (Check in directly with SingleHop for SLA details.)
“Because of the strength of our platform, the infrastructure, and support we provide, we can with confidence say we will meet these SLAs or the customer will be compensated,” Joe Warpinski, project manager, SingleHop, tells ChannelE2E. “We're fully confident in our solution and we're able to offer that to the client up-front and center."
Meeting The Marketplace
SingleHop has offered a disaster recovery backup solution for about two years, thus far focusing on high-end customers. But since the company does about 40 percent of its business through channel partners, the folks at SingleHop realized they were missing an opportunity.
"We found that there were a lot of customers, particularly in the SMB space, that didn't really have the budget for a high-end active solution," says Mark Mercado, VP of channel sales, SingleHop. With that in mind, the company set about to repackage and redefine its offering to meet the marketplace.
Many companies believe they need to have one approach for their entire environment when in reality, a tiered approach is usually more effective, Mercado tells ChannelE2E. "We often found that it was just a handful of applications that really needed an active environment up very quickly," he says.
SingleHop Backup and Veeam
At the base level, SingleHop has built a service that leverage's Veeam software. "We've found that's a great solution for customers that are just looking for simple backup applications as a third option,” says Mercado.
Mercado says SingleHop has found Veeam’s software to be a good fit for customers of all sizes that are looking for reliable, high-performance backup. “The great thing is that, if they're running Veeam today, they don't have to acquire any additional hardware or software. They're just paying for the storage fee within the SingleHop environments," he adds.
Veeam has positioned itself as a business availability specialist and is currently one of the fastest-growing providers of backup software. The company expects to generate about $800 million in revenues this year, with a 2020 target of $1.5 billion, company officials said at VeeamOn 2017.
SingleHop DRaaS Solutions
For clients with more extensive needs, SingleHop has rolled out two Disaster Recovery solutions: Standby and Active.
Standby integrates with SingleHop’s Virtual Private Cloud platform and features continuous replication of mission-critical applications. This function is powered by Zerto. Customers only pay for computing resources during a failover event, the company says. (Note: ZertoCon 2017 is set for next week in Boston.)
The Active solution is an enterprise-grade disaster recovery solution powered either through Zerto or Veeam. Mercado says the service is ideal for organizations with complex needs like PCI or HIPAA compliance. He adds the service provides a dedicated environment and boasts the smallest RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery point objective) on the market today.
The Difference Between Backup and Disaster Recovery
According to Mercado, one of the biggest problems that IT professionals encounter is selling the need for disaster recovery to upper management. Service providers approach the problem from a technology perspective, while the higher-ups are more concerned with the bottom line.
Mercado says misconceptions about disaster recovery and backup abound. "Unfortunately, people tend to think of disaster recovery as a hurricane or fire. More often than not, a vast majority of the outages are simple things,” he asserts. “Day to day, the vast majority of outages have nothing to do with natural disasters."
The disparity can lead to a solution that doesn’t fully address the problem. “We've found that if we can help our partners and customers sell to upper management they have much more success in deploying a true business continuity ," says Mercado. He says the company has developed a business continuity template, complete with an ROI (return on investment) tool, that IT managers can share with executives.
That way, executives can look at the impact a potential outage has on business. "It takes it from that cost conversation and really puts it into a business light that most senior managers can understand the impact on the business," he says
This year, SingleHop was recognized as Veeam’s Strategic Partner of the Year. The company is taking part in VeeamON 2017 in New Orleans. You can follow ChannelE2E’s ongoing coverage right here.
