Ujwal Arkalgud's blog

In it's upcoming webinar, SNIA's Cloud Storage Initiative will be introducing an exciting new Cloud Backup and Restore (Cloud BUR) Special Interest Group. This webinar is open to all and will address various cloud education and collaboration activities for end users, the channel, and vendors at the SNIA Symposium, SNIA Storage Developers Conference and CloudBurst, SNW Dallas, and SNW Europe.

I wanted to share this here with you as it's a great way to get to know SNIA and the Cloud Storage Initiative and also get involved (if you aren't already!).

You can click here to register.

As consumers of backup, we haven’t been diligent enough in the past, when deciding which software platform or backup service to adopt to meet our data protection needs. Too much attention has been paid to the act of backup and software vendors have constantly focused their attention on metrics such as backup windows. However, at the end of the day, what really matters is how quickly you can recover data while causing minimal disruption to your business.

When you start focusing on recovery, you’ll realize that you don’t need to have the same Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) or Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) for all your data. That is, older data can have more relaxed recovery objectives or Service Level Agreements (SLAs) compared to younger, more critical data. Most companies need to have access to (and recover in case of data loss) older data for compliance purposes. Due to different RPOs and RTOs based on the age of the data, customers should demand tiered recovery solutions from their Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

In fact, Gartner, in its research document entitled, New Storage Solutions Can Modernize Data Life Cycle Management (published: 24 February 2010), recommends organizations to “Focus data availability requirements on recovery capabilities, versus meeting the backup window, and build solutions that have the fastest and most cost-effective recovery capabilities.”

In what way can tiered recovery help an organization?

Apart from the obvious, i.e. allowing you to meet quicker RPOs for more critical data, tiered recovery helps align the value of data with the cost of protecting it. It helps stretch your backup budget and makes data protection and recovery a lot more efficient.

Consider a simple example. Your corporate mandate might require you to recover data, up to 7 days old, much quicker than data that’s between 7 and 90 days. Further, you might have more flexible and lax objectives with data that’s more than 3 months old. In such a case, you could utilize a local storage option for your youngest data, allowing you to recover at LAN speeds. You could then send data, that’s between 7 and 90 days old, to an offsite location over the WAN and data that’s older than 90 days, to a different location where it resides on cheaper media and meets longer RPOs. The net result of such a strategy – you not only have access to recover mission critical data quickly, but you’re also able to improve the efficiency of your backups, cut costs, while still meeting your disaster recovery objectives. 

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Image Source: Flickr User: iliveisl

Our new website went live over the past weekend with a goal to significantly improve your interaction with us, online.

If you’re visiting our website to learn about us and our product, we want to ensure that you find relevant information easily and that you’re directed to content that better suits your needs. We also want to assist you in easily locating an Asigra Powered Reseller or Service Provider.

If you’re already an Asigra Partner, we want you to have easy and quick access to news, content and collateral that not only assists you in staying in touch with developments at Asigra but also benefits you in your sales cycle.

We hope your experience in interacting with us online is a lot more efficient. For the next month, we will continue to have a feedback button (as seen on the left hand side of the webpage) that will allow you to instantly send us your comments.  We thank you in advance for taking the time to give us your feedback.

Finally, we would like to thank Peapod Studios for doing an outstanding job on this project right from conception to design and execution.

- On behalf of the Asigra Marketing Team.

Have you thought about your brand lately? Have you asked yourself the simple question “What’s the first thing that comes to my customers’ minds when they think of us?”  If you haven’t, now’s the time to start. Here’s why:

The Managed Backup Services market is heating up

Forrester’s Henry Dewing reported in mid-2009 that 49% of North American and European network and telecom decision makers said that they were somewhat/very interested in procuring Storage and Backup as a service. Over the last 6 months, this trend has continued and Managed Service Providers are looking to make the most of the growing opportunity by offering a bundle of services that solve numerous business problems.

It’s time to rise above the noise

In all this excitement, a lot of MSPs are forgetting to pay attention to the basics, especially their brand.

A strong brand identity:

• Makes building brand awareness easier - A clear and memorable identity makes it easier to induce top-of-mind awareness amongst your target audience.
• Helps make the customer experience consistent - Once you determine what your brand must stand for or represent, you can then look at each customer touch-point (phone calls, emails, newsletters, sales behavior during webinars and trade shows etc.) and design an experience that is not only consistent but also reinforces your brand message.
• Creates loyalty - Consumers develop relationships with brands, the same way people develop relationships with each other. A strong identity allows consumers to attach meaning to brands and develop an emotional connection with them.
• Helps you rise above the noise and truly differentiate yourself - At the end of the day, you want to be recognized and known, not as just another company but as YOU. Remember, rising above the noise with a clear brand identity requires a lot less marketing spend.

If you’re looking to figure out how you should brand yourself and what your brand must stand for, I would recommend reading the first two chapters of David Aaker’s book “Brand Leadership”. In these chapters, Aaker guides you through a model called the “Brand Identity Planning Model”. Spending a few hours on this tool will give you clarity on your brand’s identity.

Finally, talk to your software vendors and ask them for help as well. Use them as a sounding board for your ideas. Remember, software vendors benefit as much as you do when you grow your business!

We just did a Twitter interview with Jennifer Walzer, the CEO of Backup My Info!, Inc. this morning. She had some really good insight that we wanted to share with all of you. Here’s the full interview.

asigra @BackupMyInfo Good morning Jennifer. I will start tweeting you questions for our #interview and will later post this on our blog as well.

asigra @BackupMyInfo Q1. What made you get into #cloud#backup? #interview

BackupMyInfo @Asigra lol this is difficult to answer in 140 characters but i’ll do my best …ok stay tuned

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q1: in 2002 there was a huge opportunity to help businesses with a better and more reliable backup solution – market was wide open

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q1: i also believed that companies have enough stress in their businesses – they dont need the additional stress of losing data

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q1: no one ever thinks about backup until its too late – thats why i entered it -its a different expertise to properly bkup/restore

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q1: what we do is “backup” but why we do what we do is because we focus on ensuring everything from setup/bkp/restore is done right

asigra @BackupMyInfo Q2. What’re the 2 biggest reasons customers turn to you for cloud backup services? #interview

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q2: 1 reason – we know our clients’ industry in terms of data protection (we just focus on professional service firms)

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q2: we dont just throw you the software / facilities and wish you all the best (you shouldnt have to learn everything on your own)

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q2: 2 reason: each client is paired up with a senior level engineer who will handhold them every step of the way

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q2: 2 reason: including best practice consultation (industry focused), install, and daily physical monitoring of logs for them

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q2: we believe that our clients should focus on their business – we give them peace of mind by being their trusted advisor/teammate

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q2: our clients tend to be customers that provide a high quality level of services to their customers and see us as their partners

asigra @BackupMyInfo Q3. What do you look for in the partners you do business with? #interview

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q3: Like our customers, we look for partners who provide very high quality level services to their customer base and are looking

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q3: for experts who they can trust to make sure their clients backups run smoothly for them…

asigra @BackupMyInfo Q4. 3 things one must be thinking of/considering before getting into managed services? #interview

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q4: 1) know your differentiation in the mkt – you need a clear picture as to why you and not someone else

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q4: #2 – Don’t give svcs away free/too cheap hoping to make it up in volume later – you need to make money – free model doesn’t work

BackupMyInfo @Asigra #4: #3: You need your own backup and you need to manage your own systems daily – dont assume they will just run on their own.

asigra Q5. What’s in store for @BackupMyInfo in 2010? #interview

BackupMyInfo @Asigra Q5: We will continue to focus on our industry expertise and client growth in the NYC area as well as expand our DR capabilities

asigra @BackupMyInfo (last Q)Q6. How do you see social media affecting the way you do business? #interview

BackupMyInfo @Asigra #6: I think SM is just a tool to help share ideas and be accessible to the market-we’re still learning -would love input on this!

Interested in providing managed cloud backup? Download our MSP Guide to Cloud Backup.

For over 20 years, we’ve helped Managed Service Providers make well informed decisions in regards to their foray into cloud backup and recovery. We recently decided to put all that experience into a concise 6 page guide with the idea of helping MSPs in their decision making process.

We hope this document serves as a useful guide. If you’re a Managed Service Provider thinking about getting into the backup business, what should your key considerations be?

- What should you know about your customers and their requirements?
- On what parameters must you assess various technologies?
- How can you determine this new venture’s impact on your bottom line? In other words, how profitable will this new venture be?

Enough said. Click here to download.

We were recently at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas. For those of you who attended that as well, you’ll recall that throughout the week, there was tons of buzz around cloud computing. People were trying to make sense of public and private clouds and trying to understand how they might be able to leverage these technologies within their organizations.