The Backup Disaster and Recovery sector has dramatically evolved over the past three decades from the tapes into a commoditized Cloud solution today. Most businesses understand that the protection of data is crucial in order to stay in business. Hackers are not discriminating on the type or size of business. They are attacking anyone with anything of value stored on a computer or storage device anywhere.
Remember when vendors were trying to sell IT Security like an insurance policy? Like it’s good to have just in case you may need it one day. Today, protecting data has become a critical lifeline for any business and consumer. The huge amount of ransomware attacks has propelled the importance of BDR into a commonly integrated layer of any IT Security protection stack.
One of the first BDR solutions ever developed was by Asigra. They were instrumental in its evolution and still continue to push the boundaries into today’s Cloud environment. David Farajun started Asigra in Canada back in 1986 when backup was simply something people did to safe-keep their data just in case their computer or hard-drive failed. Back then and still true today, you kept a copy of your data at some remote location in case of natural disasters like fire or floods. Today’s remote location is somewhere in the Cloud.
David, a true visionary pioneer in the BDR space was one of the first to move backup into the Cloud that has been a key driver in revolutionizing the technology. Today David, now joined with his son Eran, take Asigra into the next generation and future of BDR.
Actually, the company is already way ahead of the curve again with their latest version of BDR solution. And, not just in advanced Cloud technology (with some recent awards to prove it http://new.e-channelnews.com/asigra-wins-gold-for-data-protection-leadership-in-coveted-techtarget-product-of-the-year-awards/), but also with the right business model for the channel!
As a channel-only company since its inception, they never had to play the direct-indirect game as they have grown always with partners over 30 years in over 50 countries. With this pure channel record, it is clear that they are all-in with the Channel.
The company’s headquarter is in Ontario Canada in a 30,000 square ft. company-owned building with over 100 employees taking care of business every day. Their team is 100% focused on developing the best BDR technology and delivering the highest level of customer satisfaction. You may want to visit them to see just how their team takes business and customers to heart.
David Farajun, CEO of Asigra said, “When you partner with Asigra, you will be part of a very special family that is ready to build strong relationships and smart partnerships. Our entire way of thinking and doing business revolves around building our partner successes”.
Let’s break this down a little more into 2 important parts:
The technology
Asigra is a software-only company delivering a SaaS solution to help channel partners offer the most reliable and affordable BDR services to their customers.
Their technology seems to be ahead of its competition in protecting their customers from the latest and nasty attack-loop ransomware. This is when the hacker seeds a dormant virus that will eventually get backed up into your full data backup storage history so when you do try to recover, the ransomware virus will launch to instantly re-infect your data, thereby rendering all of your back-up instances useless! A big and growing problem that should keep all business owners up at night!
“The bad actors have figured out that when a company has a BDR solution, they do not need to pay the ransom. Instead, the target simply wipes the machines clean and reboots with their backup data. Hackers got smarter in finding a new way to infect the backup data! This is the latest method for breaking BDR solutions and everyone needs to quickly find out if their current BDR provider can protect them from this new type of attacks, if it is not already too late!” Commented Eran Farajun, Executive Vice President of Asigra
Asigra latest version blocks this new attack in a very clever way.
Their technology will monitor the flow of data to and from the storage units and flag/isolate/remove any suspicious malware! With this in and out virus filter, the data’s integrity is much better protected from this new wave of cyber attacks! They also have all sorts of sniffer technology that will identify such intrusions and block them.
Since Asigra understands BDR at the DNA level, they already went to the next level in protection beyond 2-factor authentication (Read article on this http://new.e-channelnews.com/asigra-partners-with-secret-double-octopus-to-stop-malware-threats-from-silently-infecting-backup-data/).
The company also offers partners a comprehensive dashboard that allows partners to simplify the deployment, monitoring and management of the entire solution.
The business model
The Asigra software leverages any data centre, including all of the leading public brands like AWS, GOOGLE, AZURE, as well as private and hybrid solutions. Their partners and their end-users are never locked into any one data-centre provider. The ability to switch providers is an always–on option. You will also know exactly where and how your data is stored, which is increasingly important as it is mandated by many important governmental regulations.
The key is that the partner is always 100% in control of their customers, data, costs and business. The partner becomes the BDR brand facing their customers, but with the well established and proven companies in the background for instant credibility.
This allows partners to build some intellectual property to protect their own BDR brands that they could resell to other partners, if they wish. Under careful examination of this model, smart channel partners will realize that this is a sure way to increase profitability and market valuation of their business.
The scenario is quite simple. Asigra will help the MSP/VAR partner to get up and running with any data-centre provider that they choose. Once done, they can activate as many clients as they wish and manage everything with one simple-to-use web dashboard.
With a special SaaS license-pricing model, channel partners can make huge incremental profits from increased annual growth as the software license is capped, year-to-year. Have a deeper conversation with the Asigra team to better grasp what this will mean to your profitability.
Instead of the forever increasing payments that you make to typical BDR vendors based on the actual amount of data storage used, you can now bring predictability and stability to you and your customer’s business requirements and especially pricing. To reduce costs even further and be more competitive, you could allow your customers to use their current internal or hybrid data storage systems to store their data.
Under this model, the channel partner also retains 100% control and ownership of their customers with zero optics by any third-party BDR vendor. This removes any possibility of customer poaching at any time. Think what could happen if you had to break off from the vendor.
Check the Asigra company out for yourself at www.asigra.com
Check their interview at the recent ChannelNext East event.
We will be monitoring the ongoing journey of Asigra and bringing you updates every month. Subscribe to eChannelNEWS to receive automatic updates or keep watching.
