Level Platform, Asigra, Terian Team On SMB Managed Backups
Level Platforms, the Ottawa-based supplier of technology for helping solution providers centrally monitor and manage multiple networks and devices, is adding a hook to allow monitoring of data backups using software from Asigra, the Toronto-based developer of agentless backup and restore solutions for remote offices.
The two companies are expected to officially launch the new relationship Aug. 14, said Eran Farajun, executive vice president of Asigra.
The two are also working with Terian, a Houston-based builder of custom servers and storage appliances and a managed backup service provider, to provide such services to smaller solution providers.
The three-way partnership means that solution providers have a choice about how to bring managed backup services to customers, Farajun said.
"If you are a VAR, you can engage with Asigra and Level Platforms to put together your own backup service," Farajun said. "Or you don't have the skill, you can work with Terian and use their backup service."
Mike Colesante, director of sales for the Secure Backup offering from Terian, said his company started working with Asigra to offer managed backup as a service to customers about two years ago, and is currently the only managed backup service provider certified by Level Platforms.
Terian currently has between 25 and 35 active small business solution providers working with it, a number Colesante said should grow based on the spike in inquiries about its service since the company starting to work with Level Platforms about three months ago. "They're coming to us and saying their customers are asking about managed services," he said. "They're saying that customers are telling them, if you don't do it, someone else will come and do it direct."
The advantage of working with Asigra from the customer and solution provider point of view is that Asigra's software allows the backing up of data locally and to a remote location such as Terian's vault, Colesante said. "If you want to restore data, you don't want to pull it over the wire," he said.
The three-way partnership is only the latest in a series of moves by MSPs to provide backup as a service to smaller business customers.