With the plethora of Software-as-a-Service applications for business, data is gradually shifting away from individual computers. Paying for expensive backup services for individual workstations may not be cost effective. However, in my days working on a help desk, I couldn't count how many users stored individual files and documents on their desktops. Those files rarely get backed up, and in the event of hardware failure or other errors or mistakes, they can be lost forever.
I would always warn users that the desktop is not a safe place for their files, but the words often fell on deaf ears. SolarWinds MSP obviously knows the habits of these types users and has now offered a solution to help IT managers easily integrate a document backup service within its Remote Monitoring and Management tool. Even better, they released this new integration at a price point of $1 per workstation/month.
SolarWinds MSP: Beyond RMM
SolarWinds Backup Documents claims to manage backup and recovery for all business documents—designed to prevent downtime from natural disasters, hardware failures, accidental deletions, ransomware, and user error. The company also stated that users can leverage the cloud to rapidly and easily self-service restore documents to any location in the world, based on twice-daily automated backups.
The service also claims to offer zero configuration. It can find documents automatically and set them to backup according to the programmed schedule. It also boasts an end user self-restore function. As often as I found rouge documents on a user's desktop, I would also be asked to restore files that were accidentally overwritten or deleted. I started thinking that users no longer cared how often they pressed the delete button, always knowing that a backup existed somewhere. Allowing the end users to restore these files themselves will definitely save a phone call to help restore the file, saving time for both the user and the help desk.
If you are already using SolarWinds RMM, this additional integration is so cost-effective that it could be an easy sell to decision makers. They would see the ROI the first time they delete a file accidentally from their desktop repository.
Key Rivalries
Of course, competition is intensifying across the MSP-centric backup market. As we've reported:
- Autotask and Datto are expected to merge sometime this month, bringing RMM, PSA, backup and business continuity under one roof. Autotask already has some endpoint backup offerings on its own.
- Continuum offered outsourced RMM, BDR, NOC and help desk services to MSPs.
- ConnectWise and Kaseya each has multiple backup relationships and integrations, though ConnectWise seems to be leaning in most aggressively with Infrascale lately.
In SolarWinds MSP's case, the document backup move is part of the company's latest push beyond traditional MSP monitoring messaging.
Additional insights from Joe Panettieri.
