Instead of targeting one segment of the data protection market, StorageCraft wants to help channel partners -- MSPs, VARs and more -- to serve the entire customer spectrum. That includes everything from small businesses to midsize customers and enterprises.
The latest step in the strategy involves StorageCraft OneXafe, which converges primary and secondary storage in the midmarket. It's also ideal for fast-growth organizations that need to stay ahead of ever-growing storage needs, notes Sean Derrington, senior director of product management at StorageCraft.
Among the OneXafe design points StorageCraft emphasizes:
- Have-it-your-way data protection: It protects applications across virtual and physical environments within a single workflow and supports a variety of deployments—on-premises, remote data center or cloud-based DRaaS, the company says.
- One-Click DRaaS Orchestration: Organizations can recover data, compute and network services all in an orchestrated recovery workflow with a single click, the company asserts.
- Scale-out Storage: Partners and customers can begin with a single node and a few terabytes of capacity, then scale to multiple petabytes with zero configuration or application changes and thereby eliminate the need for forklift upgrades, the firm says.
- Administration: StorageCraft's OneSystem monitors the OneXafe platform, including real-time hardware, software and network connectivity updates. Capabilities span reporting and trending of storage capacity, data reduction ratios, remote replication, SLA-based data protection policies and recovery point objectives, the company says.
The company is also striving to rally SMB partners. For instance, OneXafe is ideal for partners that want to extend from small business into the midmarket, according to Jeannine Edwards, senior director of channel marketing. The effort is backed by a new Partner Success Program.
Meanwhile, StorageCraft has also unveiled ShadowXafe -- a data protection solution that's "simple to deploy, easy to manage and reliable even under the most demanding circumstances," the company asserts. It supports physical and virtual machines (VMs), and integrates with StorageCraft's cloud-based Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS).
Take a closer look, and it's clear StorageCraft is taking aim at:
- Midmarket rivals like Veeam and Rubrik, claiming OneXafe eliminates the need for multiple siloed approaches. (Growth stories at Veeam and Rubrik also remain strong.)
- Small business rivals like MSP-centric Datto and a lengthy list of additional vendors, many of which also enjoy strong growth in the MSP ecosystem.
Growing, Crowded, Consolidating Markets
For several years now, the overall data protection market has both grown and consolidated. For instance, TA Associates acquired StorageCraft in January 2016, installing new executive and channel leadership, and acquired Gilware and Exablox.
In addition to StorageCraft, companies in acquisition mode include Carbonite, Datto, eFolder, Kaseya and Veeam. Each of those players is banging the drum more loudly for MSPs these days (although Carbonite, in particular, hasn't said much about the MSP push on recent earnings calls).
Meanwhile, StorageCraft also is refreshing and enhancing its MSP-centric efforts. New ConnectWise Manage and Datto Autotask PSA integrations arrived in June 2018. The company will also surface at ConnectWise IT Nation Connect 2018 in November.
In the meantime, StorageCraft is seeking to rally partners in the midmarket with OneXafe.
