N-able Adds OnDemand Storage

Designed for small and midsize businesses, N-able OnDemand is the Ottawa-based vendor's modular, pay-as-you-go MSP offering, which solution providers can lease as a way to lower the cost of entry for providing managed services to customers.

The new module, StoreIT Online, should arrive in about 30 days, said Bill Stewart, N-able&'s vice president of marketing. Current OnDemand MSP modules include MonITor Online (remote network monitoring), ScanIT Online (vulnerability assessment), AccessIT Online (remote access), PatchIT Online (patch management) and SupportIT Online (professional services automation). Solution providers can mix and match which modules they lease from N-able.

PatchIT Online is typically the starting point for most VARs mulling managed services, but that may change with the introduction of StoreIT Online, according to Stewart. "Patch management has been the most common entry point, but a lot of our [partners] are telling us this is what their customers are asking for," he said. "Storage is a good place to start as an MSP."

Pricing is not yet available for StoreIT Online, but the new module will be priced in line with other OnDemand modules, Stewart said. For example, the MonITor Online module is sold in a batch license that supports a minimum of five customers for about $500 per month, or a six-month prepayment of $450 per month, according to N-able.

Understanding the risk of taking responsibility for protecting a customer's data, N-able has fortified the side of StoreIT Online that it hosts. Stewart said the vendor has crafted a redundant, multilocation storage network to ensure that data backed up from customer locations is protected and can be restored. N-able also will offer a service-level agreement (SLA) template for solution providers to personalize for their StoreIT Online customers to give them piece of mind, he added.

"We ensure the backup data for [partners], because if you are taking on something like this yourself, you are taking on a great amount of risk," Stewart said.

In other MSP news, BMC Software partner and solution provider dbaDirect, Florence, Ky., said Tuesday that it will offer BMC Performance Manager for Databases software as a managed service. The terms stipulate that dbaDirect will manage the BMC product as an MSP on an annual or multiyear basis, according to dbaDirect.

BMC Performance Manager for Databases optimizes database networks, enables corrective actions to resolve bottlenecks and can drill down into root-cause analysis, according to Houston-based BMC.