SilverBack Eases MSP Burden

When SilverBack Technologies set out to upgrade its MSP-enabling platform, it kept its eye on the prize of beefing up reseller margins.

Released this week, the new version of SilverBack’s Data Center Enterprise simplifies event resolution, increases the ability to automate policy and is easier to demonstrate to prospective customers, said Christine Washburn, vice president of marketing for the Billerica, Mass., company.

Jim Hare, SilverBack’s vice president of worldwide sales, added, “It’s all about pulling the labor out of providing managed services.”

Reducing costs by adding: >> Policy provisioning >>  Role delegation and access control >>  Integrated runbook >>  Customizable Web dashboards

That’s good news to James Carter, CTO of Integration Works, a full- service VAR and MSP in Santa Ana, Calif. “On the cost-savings side, we won’t have as many hoops to jump through,” he said.

Carter said he is migrating Integration Works’ 15 MSP customers to the SilverBack platform after becoming disenchanted with a competing MSP product. What’s more, he expects to add even more customers using the SilverStreak VPN tunnel, which allows him to provide live, remote demonstrations without shutting down a prospect’s firewall.

SilverBack’s Hare said practically every new feature of Data Center Enterprise—from an integrated runbook that gives step-by-step user guidance, to a slew of platform management templates that suit a wide range of IT environments—will reduce the management burden.

The platform allows VARs to perform “mass customization,” for example, thanks to new mix-and-match Web Dashboard tools that enable partners to easily create processes tailored to customers’ needs, Washburn said. Using dashboards, VARs can quickly address compliance issues, service priorities or set up technologies such as VoIP, she said.

In addition, the upgrade version includes tools to manage and audit user access rights. It also features faster deployment for new customers, typically at 5 minutes per monitored device.

Pricing for Data Center Enterprise starts at $28,500 for an entry-level package. The upgrade is free to existing customers.