11:11 Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) vs. Arcserve Cloud Services

Sungard seems to be well-suited for those companies still doing traditional disaster recovery - replicating data (or shipping tapes), building out the servers/mainframe/AS400, restoring data/databases, then loading the applications and testing. We have limited exposure to their cloud offerings. For the most part, they can also take on or assist in the initial builds of client environments - we used them for building the OS only.

Incentivized

StorageCraft Cloud Backup is scalable and easy to deploy and manage the product. In my opinion, it's great for MSPs or for anyone managing multiple sites where keeping standards is a priority. Compared to using ShadowProtect and Image Manager, it requires a lot less manual work to maintain and keep running smoothly. However options and customization are more restricted so I wouldn't recommend it for non-standard environments, or scenarios where each agent needs a different configuration.

Incentivized

• Sungard does a good job dispersing risk. Even though the equipment we subscribe to is also subscribed by many other companies, they do a good job spreading those subscriptions across multiple industries and geographies, so that it is highly likely they'd have the equipment you'd need in the event of declaring a disaster
• Sungard has also done a good job working with us to break out costs, so that we are able to allocate our invoices amongst multiple products and clients.
• Sungard does a good job with security - physical security in the facilities, ensuring our interactions with them through their help desk or portal are secure, maintaining good access control, and providing us with options for ensuring our data is encrypted during testing activities

Incentivized

• Easy file and folder backup and restoring.
• Easy file and folder restoring with versioning.
• StorageCraft has great tools that allow you to spin up virtual machines from bare metal backups.

Incentivized

• Some facilities are located in inner-cities - while easily accessible by everyone, sometimes environment leaves something to be desired.
• Limited expertise in Solaris (Sun) regarding their managed services offerings.
• Often times a laborious process to engage someone to do hands/feet work.

Incentivized

• Reporting is not white-labelled and its design has room for improvement
• No automatic/scheduled virtual boot tests
• Customization is very limited

Incentivized

I had used IBM Disaster Recovery Services in a previous job. While I found IBM much quicker to work with in terms of updating our equipment reservations, I've found Sungard much easier to conduct testing with. Specifically, they are much more adaptable and client-focused.

Incentivized

I haven't used many others, but Acronis is one of them. Acronis seemed to break for me very easily, a problem I don't have with StorageCraft. I couldn't find Macrium in the list, but it also has given me issues that I don't have with StorageCraft. StorageCraft, as I said before, just works, and I don't have to worry about my data.

Incentivized

• ROI is a difficult concept regarding BCP or DR, since most dollars spent towards this are simply regarded as 'insurance' rather than an investment.
• Our ability to test and share those results with many of our clients is probably the biggest non-monetary return on investment we get.

Incentivized

• Reduced manual workload on managing backups by 50% compared to ShadowProtect and Image Manager
• Increased profitability as its price is very competitive

Incentivized