CA: It's Your Relationship

CA also expects the Instant Recovery On Demand service to provide cross-selling opportunities for resellers of its ARCserve on-premise data backup software. Famularo said the two offerings are complementary in that ARCserve is used for data archiving -- a regulatory requirement in many industries -- while the on-demand service provides backup and recovery services for critical IT systems. CA also expects to enlist solution providers that are expanding into managed services to carry Instant Recovery On Demand, Famularo said.

Pricing for the service is tiered, with the average cost of a three-year deal covering three servers around $600 per server per month, Famularo said.

CA is offering resellers margins in the range of 30 percent to 40 percent on the service, according to Famularo, because he said CA understands that the turnkey system limits how much solution providers can charge for implementation and related services. "Resellers are making very heavy margins on this," he said.

The service is available now in North America and Germany with availability elsewhere in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific slated for the first half of 2009. CA is recruiting channel partners to work directly with the vendor to offer the service, although Famularo said CA plans to eventually offer the service to solution providers through distributors such as Ingram Micro Inc., Synnex Corp. and Tech Data Corp.

Powersolution.com, a HoHoKus, N.J.-based solution provider, is reselling Instant Recovery On Demand as a business- continuity service. Demonstrating the ROI of a business-continuity solution to help close deals is an effective sales strategy, said CEO David Dadian. "I believe we're going to be very successful with this," he said. His company will use the service as a vehicle to expand into midsize companies, particularly in legal and health-care markets, with 100 to 200 employees.

Dadian said CA is offering the service "at a remarkable price point" compared to disaster-recovery/business-continuity solutions from other vendors. But he said it might still be too pricey for small companies with, say, 20 workers.