The next major shift in cloud backup and business continuity apparently has arrived. It potentially involves cloud-to-cloud backup, allowing MSPs and cloud solutions providers (CSPs) to protect customer data from Office 365, Salesforce.com, Google Apps and more.
Among the latest moves: StorageCraft Technology today announced plans for a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery platform. The platform, previewed today at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2016 (WPC16), initially will support backup and recovery protection of Office 365, Google Apps, Salesforce.com and Box, the company said.
An official launch is expected later this year, StorageCraft Chief Technology Officer Scott Barnes told ChannelE2E. The target price for the service will be about $5 per user (per month, I believe). But certain platforms, like Salesforce, could cost a bit more. The initial release will back up data to StorageCraft's cloud. Longer term, StorageCraft will develop a version that allows MSPs and/or customers to download a copy of their data to the MSP or a customer server, Barnes added.
Cloud-to-Cloud Backup Options: The List
StorageCraft certainly isn't alone in the market. Several companies already offer cloud-to-cloud backup. Among the key players that ChannelE2E tracks:
1. Datto Backupify: Datto acquired Backupify in December 2014. Originally known for protecting Google Apps data, Backupify has expanded to support Office 365, OneDrive and SharePoint, according to VP of Business Development Rob Rae. Moreover, nearly all of Backupify’s platform has been migrated from Amazon to Datto’s own cloud. The migration involved 60 billion objects, CEO Austin McChord mentioned during DattoCon16 in June 2016.
2. eFolder: The company acquired cloud-to-cloud backup specialist Cloudfinder in 2014, making eFolder a first-mover in the MSP-focused cloud-to-cloud backup market. Since that time, eFolder has grown Cloudfinder's business 800%, though specific dollar figures are undisclosed. "We protect billions of objects and have data for over 100,000 users on the platform today," says CEO Kevin Hoffman. Pricing for MSPs is less than $2 per user per month, he adds.
3. Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda Networks: The company now offers cloud-to-cloud backup for Office 365. Barracuda acquired Intronis in September 2015, and CEO BJ Jenkins has pointed to growing security and cloud storage momentum -- driven by the Intronis MSP base. However, we don't know how many MSPs have embraced the more recent cloud-to-cloud backup initiative.
4. OwnBackup: Led by former Intronis CEO Sam Gutmann, OwnBackup grew by a factor of 4X last year, he says. And the momentum continues this year. "We've already have done more business in the first six months of 2016 than all of 2015 combined," Gutmann tells ChannelE2E. "We've tripled the number of employees and are still aggressively hiring." Gutmann says growing vendor interest in the market further solidifies OwnBackup's mission.
5. Spanning by EMC: The company claims to support more than 5,000 organizations while protecting Google Apps, Office 365 and Salesforce. Among the people to know: David Tillman, senior director of business development, channels and alliances.
6. What options did we miss? Please email me ([email protected]) details about additional solutions.
StorageCraft: The Bigger Strategy
Cloud-to-cloud backup is only one piece of a larger StorageCraft strategy that has been unfolding in recent months.
A private equity company acquired StorageCraft in January 2016, installed a new CEO, and hired additional channel leadership to drive deeper MSP and VAR relationships. The moves have accelerated StorageCraft's overall partner strategy.
"The moves have really helped us to step up our midmarket enterprise efforts," VP of Marketing Curt James tells ChannelE2E. "The changes -- the ownership, the leadership -- have given us a healthy sense of urgency to help our partners in terms of support and boosting their profitability."
Before the new ownership arrived, "we learned as we went," adds Barnes. "Now we've got leadership that has 'been there, done that' in terms of scaling a business. As a result, we can make decisions much faster."
Indeed, much of the new leadership had previous success building and scaling SonicWall -- both as an independent company and more recently under Dell's ownership. (Though Dell is now selling that business to a private equity firm ahead of the EMC buyout).
Next up for StorageCraft: A new partner portal in the next few months. Oh, and the cloud-to-cloud backup capabilities in late Q3 or early Q4 2016.
