“We offer three skills without the need to handle three different goods. If we can make life easier for MSPs, we can significantly reduce the expense of handling their backup stacks, “says David Bennett, CEO of Axcient.
MSP-focused data security software developer Axcient on Tuesday launched Direct to Cloud in a move company said it offers managed service providers a full offering to help secure their client’s data.
Direct to Cloud is the third leg of the Axcient x360Recover deal for MSPs, said David Bennett (pictured), CEO of the Denver-based firm.
Direct to Cloud, or D2C, is based on the same technology that drives Axcient’s hardware-based data security appliances for instant local retrieval and virtualization and for delivering cloud-based image data security for remote workstations, Bennett told.
“We are releasing a tech stack that is the same as our bare metal recovery software, but without hardware,” he added. “We had Direct to Cloud on our long-term road map. Yet 2020 has taught us that we need to adapt and act quickly.
One of the implications of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is the recognition that data security is not yet taken as seriously as it should be, Bennett added.
“It’s human behavior, we’re all sort of lazy,” he said. “We’re also concentrating on keeping information on the cloud. But with the switch to work from home, a number of people backed up to local devices. The biggest guilty parties are the CEOs, and we don’t want people asking us what to do. Axcient knows this, and this is painful for MSPs.
Axcient’s Direct to Cloud provides a lot of versatility to MSPs, said Angus Robertson, Chief Revenue Officer of Axcient.
“MSPs will use their RMM (remote monitoring and management) platform to quietly deploy data to the cloud, and then later use the same approach to replicate data to clients’ on-site settings,” Robertson told CRN. “Today, MSPs and other vendors require two solutions to do that.”
Axcient Direct to Cloud is what Robert Cioffi, chief operating officer and co-founder of Yonkers, N.Y.-based MSP Revolutionary Computing, said he’s been asking for a long time.
Cioffi, who has been on the Axcient Partner Advisory Board for eight years, whether he considers the time spent with eFolder before that business merged with Axcient in 2018, told CRN that over the past few years, consumers have shifted more data from the workplace to public or private clouds, which can be pricey alternatives.
“In terms of organizational sophistication, we want a solution for everything we do,” he said. “I like everything in a disaster recovery basket. We don’t want to use Axcient for data security on-site and anyone else for the cloud. It’s a total game-changer for us.
Progressive Computing has been using Axcient’s Replibit platform for cloud-based backup and disaster recovery on private clouds, which can be expensive, Cioffi stated.
“These solutions lead to unnecessary storage costs and unnecessary servers,” he said. “But there was no other means. Axcient Direct to Cloud simplifies the data security process and making it easy to switch to automated cloud servers.
Progressive Computing’s lead engineer was “kicking the tire” on Axcient Direct to Cloud, and so far, Cioffi said.
“We’ve got some new company going up with it already installed in,” he said. “We’re very pumped about this. It was a real pain to do it any other way.
MSP platform creator Kaseya, in a recent study, found that 78% of MSPs use more than three backup technology providers, Bennet said.
“It’s got to be a headache,” he said. “For us, we have three strengths without the need to handle three different goods. If we can make it simpler for MSPs, we can significantly reduce the expense of handling their backup stacks.
Adam Preeo, Director of Product Management at Axcient, told CRN that Axcient Direct to Cloud is taking advantage of flat rates for unrestricted storage, which is essential to MSPs.
“Other manufacturers sell different goods and costs, and thus MSPs are required to handle different products at different costs,” Preeo said. “We don’t need that with Axcient Direct to Cloud.”
Axcient Direct to Cloud is now in beta testing and is expected to be available in general by mid-November, Preeo said.
