When you’re looking to offer data protection, there are a several standards that the MSP industry practice. Some of them are outlined in our guide on backup management for MSPs Guide to Backup Management for MSPs.
But another standard is image-based backups.
Having this standard means you’re serious about recoverability and is a stark comparison to the file- and folder-based backup products that riddle the industry. For many MSPs, they believe it’s a sufficient measure to take and it’s easy to see why.
Many MSPs are small businesses and most don’t mind the lengthy downtime when problems arise.
But what if there were better options for MSPs to choose from?
What if you could have an entire system recovery process with no downsides that stem from image-based backups?
The reason our guide neglected mentioning image-based backups is that there are negatives to this form of backup. The problem is that it’s often taught that it’s the “right” way to protect your systems. Furthermore, people have accepted it’s limitations as part of doing business.
All in all, there should be more to the backup process than using image-based backup and here is why.
Consider The Best Possible Service You Can Provide
If you want a business to succeed then you need the best possible level of service to customers at the right price; a price that’s affordable and can generate profit for the business. Already you can see problems with image-based backups as they make it tougher than it needs to be for this to work.
First, think about the recovery point objective service level you want to deliver. While it does get limited by the frequency of your backups, a full image backup is a slow process requiring an entire day to complete one backup.
In short, customers will lose an entire days worth of work if something were to happen in the middle of the day.
The second component is ensuring you’re still making a profit. With image-based backups, you need to buy, maintain, expand and replace a lot of local data storage and hardware. These are additional costs that many MSPs don’t consider.
In the end, these limitations result in a backup service that is too expensive for certain customers. You’ll either:
- Lower prices in which you’ll lose money on backing up or;
- You’ll cover all your costs but charge a lot for the service meaning customers will lose out on the data protection service you offer.
Neither of those options is ideal.
A Better Way
Even though image-based backups are a standard, there are different architectures that you can consider. You don’t have to settle with backups once per day.
For example, you can look for services that offer incremental backups that will only take a few minutes to do and don’t require hours of troubleshooting. A good example of a platform that can do that is SolarWinds Backup. The service provides recovery in a way that minimizes data loss and keeps lost productivity down to a minimum.
Best of all the backups can occur every hour (or even every 15 minutes, if required) which can deliver a higher level of service for recovery time.
What is clear for MSPs is that the more value you can deliver to customers and the more efficient you can be at doing this, the more successful and profitable you will be.
About MSP Corp
MSP Corp understands you’ve worked hard to build your business and you want to protect it. With a mission to be a world-class business partner for MSP owners across Canada, we actively seek to acquire and partner with owners looking to secure the value of the business they have built and provide a seamless exit process that ensures business continuity and employee and client stability.
Contact us today to learn more about selling your business and maximizing its value.