Posts Tagged ‘business continuity’
Business Continuity and Change
Last week, I had lunch with my niece. She’s interested in becoming a writer and she wanted to talk about what to expect. I explained to her the many encouraging and discouraging things I’ve learned about being a writer, trying to help her make a decision with her eyes open. I hope that what she took away was this: be prepared. The publishing world is tough, especially now that it is changing so rapidly. If she wants to be successful, she needs to take the time to figure out exactly what she wants to accomplish, do a lot of research, then set up a plan for how she’s going to accomplish it so that when those disastrously dark days come (and they will come when you’re trying to be a professional writer), she’ll have the support of her knowledge, planning, and ambition to carry her through.
When I got back to work, I realized that what I’d said applies to businesses, too. A lot of things can get in the way of your success, and the best way to protect yourself from all of it is to have a plan. A business continuity plan. Of course you know that. You don’t want your business to be swept away by some disaster. But as I told my niece, there’s more to watch out for than disasters. There’s change.
One of the biggest challenges she’ll face in becoming a writer will be the massive upheavals that will continue to wrack the publishing industry in the years to come. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but change is also a pretty fundamental part of the IT world as well. Last week, IT World posted this article about the evolution from the standard BIOS in your computer to the new and improved Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). This is a huge change that will add all sorts of new functionality to your computer, but it also brings with it all sorts of questions and challenges.
This is just one example, but we all know that changes like this are happening all the time. SOPA/PIPA nearly changed the way websites run. Windows 8 is coming at the end of this year. Mobile computing is becoming more and more prevalent. It’s one thing to have a plan in place that protects you against user error, or hacker attacks, or natural disasters, but have you thought about how to protect yourself against change?
As I told my niece, the key is to take your time, figure out what your long-term business goals are, and then make a plan. If you’re prepared, if you know that change is coming and you’ve thought in advance about how to deal with that change, then you’ll be able to deal with it when it comes.
Video: Business Continuity Suite
In the last few weeks we’ve told you a bit about our partnership with Symform. We’re working together on the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform. Symform worked with Varvid Video to put together this short introduction to the Business Continuity Suite, which includes interviews with Brandon Nordquist, StorageCraft’s vice president of product management and one of its co-founders, Praerit Garg, Symform’s CEO and co-founder and Jamison West, CEO of JWCS, a managed service provider already using the Business Continuity Suite.
If you’d like to know more, visit www.businesscontinuitysuite.com
Business Continuity Suite Web Training
Today’s Business Continuity Suite Web training is underway, but there are still a couple of opportunities to sign up. These free, one-hour Webinars will show you how easy it is to offer your SMB customers simple, affordable cloud backup with the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform. Next week, we’ll have two training session, on Tuesday and on Thursday, so you can learn how StorageCraft ShadowProtect and the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud can make it easy for you provide cloud backup to your customers. In addition to easy implementation, the Business Continuity Suite is also very cost effective. Hard to believe? The free Web training will explain why it’s time to move your customers to the cloud.
Here are some benefits of the Business Continuity Suite:
* Rapid recovery
* Restore to bare metal, to dissimilar hardware or to and from virtual environments.
* Backup near-line and in the cloud
* Encryption of backup files using 256-bit military grade AES algorithm
* Redundant storage of secure files in multiple locations and around the world.
In addition to saving money, the Business Continuity Suite is also fast and extremely secure. You won’t have to worry about unwanted intruders stealing you or your customers’ data.
The upcoming online training events are Tuesday, September 14 and Thursday, September 16. Check out the Business Continuity Suite Web site to find out more, and to sign up for a Webinar.
Analyst’s view of the Business Continuity Suite
StorageCraft and Symform zoom into online disaster recovery and business continuity
Partnership between software vendors for MSP storage services
By Deni Connor
Senior Analyst
Storage Strategies NOW
September 2010
Data protection and recovery software developer StorageCraft and cloud services provider Symform moved into the world of cloud-based disaster recovery and business continuity with a recent partnership in which Symform will be a platform for protecting StorageCraft ShadowProtect images.
The Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform allows Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to offer their customers backup and disaster recovery as a cloud-based storage offering. Using ShadowProtect™ technology, MSPs save backup images onsite and offsite, via the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud™ to enable near-line and cloud-based disaster recovery.
Simply, the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform allows ShadowProtect image-level backups to be securely distributed across other small and mid-sized businesses and among its IT service providers in a cooperative and shared storage fashion in order to protect it and ensure its recoverability.
StorageCraft and Symform are among the first vendors to craft such a deal, which provides their MSP partners and their SMB customers with an affordable and easily implemented means of disaster recovery.
Market background
In the SMB market, although 50% of businesses have a local backup strategy, they often do not have an affordable and efficient means of moving data offsite for protection in the event of a disaster. They may shuttle tapes offsite or they may use an online backup service such as EMC MozyPro or Carbonite, whose pricing is based on a capacity of storage stored. An SMB will soon find that these methods for protecting data and providing business continuity are too error-prone, cumbersome to administer and time-consuming means to recover data quickly. And, they are expensive – online backup services can cost almost $400 a month to protect even just one file server.
Enter the Business Continuity Suite
StorageCraft has partnered with Symform to use its distributed storage system across small and mid-sized businesses and their IT storage service providers. Here’s how the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform works.
StorageCraft ShadowProtect Server™, ShadowProtect Small Business Server™ or ShadowProtect Desktop™ creates an encrypted, image-based backup of a designated system. This series of differential and incremental point-in-time backup image files are then stored in locally hosted folders. The Symform Node software, which is installed on one computer in the customer’s network, is pointed at these local folders, where it monitors them for file adds or changes. It then automatically mirrors the adds and changes made to local storage to the cloud, where it creates a duplicate file structure.
Each StorageCraft image file is reduced to a series of 64MB blocks, which are then encrypted using AES-256 encryption algorithms. These 64MB blocks are then shredded locally into 1MB fragments. Using an erasure encoding algorithm called Reed-Solomon, 32 parity fragments are added to every 64, resulting in 96 fragments. Dubbed RAID-96™ by Symform, any 64 of the 96 segments can recreate the original block, thereby guaranteeing recoverability and high-availability.
All 96 fragments are distributed using a random statistical model to 96 participating Nodes in the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud. An application called Symform Cloud Control™, which runs at Amazon Cloud Services (EC2) acts as a traffic controller, tells the local machine where to place each of the fragments.
When the Symform Node is configured, the end-user or MSP determines how much local disk space it plans to contribute to the cloud. This can be disk space at a local office or that of a MSP. An SMB or its MSP simply needs to contribute as much disk space as the disk space they want to consume with StorageCraft image-level backups.
Channel impact
The Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform is a completely channel-focused program, with pricing determined by StorageCraft and Symform MSPs. It makes disaster recovery practical for SMBs and at much less cost – approximately $50 per month per protected server.
The solution lets MSPs provide disaster recovery and business continuity services without a huge outlay for business continuity infrastructure. By simply donating disk space to the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud, the MSP can reap the advantages of acting as a storage services provider (SSP).
SSG-NOW Assessment
StorageCraft’s and Symform’s approach to cloud-based business continuity is a shoo-in for the small and mid-sized business, which is faced with expensive and often unreliable solutions for cloud enablement. The MSP focus of this announcement is close to perfect for the SMB who does business with a particular MSP because of the customer’s inability or disinclination to provide IT resources and because of its relative inexperience with technology. The Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform is priced right for the MSP market – at $50 per protected server, it provides an affordable, easy for the MSP to implement alternative to other inefficient cloud-based backup and recovery solutions on the market.
StorageCraft Partners with Symform to Create Comprehensive Cloud Backup
Joint offering gives SMBs affordable off-site backup and disaster recovery
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DRAPER, Utah, and Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. – Sept. 1, 2010 – StorageCraft Technology Corporation, a provider of innovative disk-based backup, disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops, and Symform, a pioneer in decentralized cloud computing services for data protection, today announced they are partnering to provide an affordable cloud backup solution for small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs).
The companies are jointly releasing the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform to provide comprehensive backup and disaster recovery to SMBs both on-site and off-site. The Business Continuity Suite will enable SMBs to backup their data on-site with StorageCraft ShadowProtect™ technology and then transfer their backups to the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud™.
“The Business Continuity Suite is a perfect solution for our customers,” said Jamison West, founder and CEO of JWCS, a Seattle-based solution provider for SMBs. “We’re serious about data protection and this suite gives us comprehensive on-site and off-site coverage.”
How the Business Continuity Suite Works
SMBs, resellers and managed service providers (MSPs) can use the Business Continuity Suite to backup all of their Windows systems both on-site and off-site. Using the award-winning ShadowProtect technology, IT administrators take regular backups of their Windows servers using ShadowProtect Server™ or ShadowProtect Small Business Server™, and desktops and laptops using ShadowProtect Desktop™. They choose an on-site destination for rapid disaster recovery in the event of a catastrophic failure, and an off-site destination via the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud. With the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud, SMBs and their MSPs contribute inexpensive, local storage and get valuable online storage in return. Symform handles the day-to-day management of network security and administration so that businesses can be assured their backup files are safe and readily available, following a disaster.
“The Business Continuity Suite fits a need that SMBs have – affordable, reliable backup and disaster recovery both on-site and off-site,” said Curt James, vice president of marketing and business development with StorageCraft. “Our partnership with Symform is a natural fit because it fills the need for decentralized, distributed and secure backup that easily can be accessed in the event of a disaster.”
“We’re delighted to be partnering with StorageCraft,” said Kevin Brown, vice president of sales and marketing at Symform. “The Business Continuity Suite brings together the two best products in the BDR segment and creates a solution for complete data protection – better yet, any business can afford it!”
Business Continuity Suite Training Seminars
To help solution providers understand how to make the most out of the Business Continuity Suite, StorageCraft and Symform are offering a series of online training seminars in the next few weeks. To learn more about these one-hour classes or to sign up for training, please visit: http://www.businesscontinuitysuite.com/bcs-webinar/.
Pricing and Availability
The Business Continuity Suite is available from authorized Symform reseller partners in North America only. Volume discounts are available.
For additional information about the Business Continuity Suite, please e-mail contactus@businesscontinuitysuite.com or visit: www.businesscontinuitysuite.com. You may also contact Symform at (206) 906-9212 or info@symform.com.
About StorageCraft Technology Corporation
StorageCraft Technology Corporation provides innovative disk-based backup, disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops. StorageCraft delivers software products that reduce downtime, improve security and stability for systems and data and lower the total cost of ownership for servers, desktops and laptops. www.storagecraft.com
About Symform
Symform, a privately held company based in Seattle, is developing cost-effective solutions to large-scale distributed data management problems. Symform is dedicated to the belief that technology products built on the cooperative, decentralized principles underlying the Internet are inherently more affordable, dependable, scalable, and sustainable than centralized data-center-based alternatives. www.symform.com
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Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform
Looking for a way to have your cloud and still make money, too? We announced our new joint cloud backup venture today, the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform. The news announcement highlights our partnership and how MSPs can use the Business Continuity Suite to backup their customers’ systems and data near-line and off-site — without it costing an arm and a leg.
In the next few weeks, Symform and StorageCraft will offer Web-based training courses so you can learn how the Business Continuity Suite works and how to set it up to get the most benefit for your customers. Basically, you use StorageCraft ShadowProtect technology to backup servers, desktops and laptops and then save the point-in-time backup images to the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud.
The Business Continuity Suite will help you provide the following:
• Get systems up and running quickly after a catastrophic failure.
• Backup on-site and replicate to the cloud for flexible disaster recovery options.
• Restore to bare metal, to dissimilar hardware or to and from virtual environments.
• Multiple levels of encryption and military grade security of backup files to prevent intrusion.
• Schedule full and incremental backups to be saved automatically on-site and in the cloud.
• Contribute excess storage and get valuable cloud storage in return.
• Rapid recovery of files, folders or your entire system should a disaster occur.
You can learn more about the Business Continuity Suite at www.businesscontinuitysuite.com, where you’ll find white papers, data sheets, an analyst’s report and more. Or sign up for the free, one-hour classes which will show you how you can offer simple, affordable cloud backup to your customers.
Intel and McAfee: A marriage made in cloud heaven?
The channel is buzzing on today’s news that Intel is acquiring McAfee, the security technology firm, for nearly $8 billion. The VAR Guy says this new union should cause a little fear and trembling in Redmond and Mountain View as it is signaling that Intel doesn’t trust Microsoft and Symantec to keep IT secure as everything moves to the cloud. So will this be a marriage made in cloud heaven? Will Intel, by acquiring McAfee, keep business data safe and secure, no matter where it’s housed?
It will be many months before we have answers to these questions, but it’s still fun to ask them. In the mean time, this could create great opportunities for channel partners with an eye on the future who are looking for serious security alternatives. If Intel can successfully merge the companies and the technologies, it will create an opening for solution providers who want to deliver solid security embedded in hardware, and low margins. It may be a leap forward for business continuity moving into the cloud era.
No one is saying Intel’s relationship with Microsoft is over. But they’ll certainly be depending on their own brand for security solutions in the future. Channel partners will want to be asking these same questions as they set disaster recovery planning and future business migration to the cloud.
Business Continuity
It’s called “disaster recovery” because it can help you get access to your systems and data following catastrophes of all kinds. But DR can also keep your business going following those everyday mishaps – something as simple as accidentally deleting a critical file or as complex as seeing your RAID server crash. Having a way to keep your business going in the event of a minor accident should be part of your overall disaster recovery plan.
That’s where StorageCraft solutions can help. The ShadowProtect line of award-winning backup and disaster recovery software for Windows systems and data helps you have a worry-free computing environment. Once you install ShadowProtect and create backup schedules on your servers and desktops, you have a copy of everything, in case you ever need it. With incremental (or delta) backups that you can take every 15 minutes, you can even ensure you have copies of minor changes you make throughout the day. Just need a specific file? You right click on the backup image file from your last backup, mount it as the next available drive letter, then simply navigate to the folder with the missing file. Now you just copy it – or drag and drop it to where you want it.
Disaster recovery software can make the difference between something being just a minor hiccup in a busy day, or a major problem that brings business to a screeching halt. Find out more about ShadowProtect solutions and see if they can help your business continuity.