How to select the right backup MSP

by Jerome M Wendt

October 26, 2007 —

Outsourced data protection is now part of the business backup conversation.
Problematic and often poorly controlled internal corporate backup processes
coupled with maturing backup software and lower storage and network bandwidth
costs from external service providers are resulting in the emergence of managed
service providers (MSPs) that provide backup services. This creates a new corporate
IT challenge: selecting the right MSP to provide corporate backup services.

MSPs make it possible for companies to safely bring backup software into existing
corporate production environments. Select backup software reduces backed up
data footprints by ratios of 10:1 or greater before encrypting and sending the
data to the MSP's site for long term protection. These high data reduction ratios
contribute to the efficient transmission of data over WAN links and data storage
at the MSP's site while the use of agentless backup software such as Asigra's
Televaulting minimizes implementation and installation times at client sites.

Yet the feature that most often appeals to companies is that they can outsource
the responsibility for their backup process to an MSP whose expertise is backup
and recovery. VAALCO Energy's (Houston, TX) IT Specialist, Dereck Stubbs, switched
to NetMass (McKinney,
TX), a backup MSP two years ago, because it enables VAALCO to recover its data
"anyplace, anywhere, and at anytime" and eliminates worries about
managing tapes, backup jobs or data growth. Stubbs says, "It is like having
a backup expert onsite."

These types of benefits are resulting in the emergence of MSPs who offer backup
services that satisfy the needs for three distinct classes of companies and
are quite different from each other.

MSPs focused on:

Consumer and Small and Home Office (SOHO). Cost is a key factor for these backup
Storage Service Providers (SSPs). Backup is the focus versus recovery and is
generally done from a single client site that experiences no more than 15 GB
of changes to its data daily. The primary downside is that data recovery may
take days.

Small to Midsize Business (SMB ). These MSPs are focused on recovery of information
and provide more complex and expansive infrastructures to support this focus.
They can support data volumes of up to 3 TB of changed data daily and multiple
operating system platforms. Recovery times are typically in the range of 24
to 72 hours.

Small to Large Enterprise. Offered by fewer MSPs, enterprise-class business
continuity services are recognized by their emphasis on providing fast recovery
in the event of a disaster - less than 24 hours. Daily enterprise customer data
volumes can far exceed 3 TB and the MSP must support a variety of operating
system platforms and offer multiple recovery options. Application recoveries
need to occur in less than 24 hours and the MSP may need to support the failover
and recoveries of specific customer applications at their site.

The availability of multiple MSPs for each customer class is resulting in differentiators
that extend beyond how MSPs protect and recover corporate data to what other
services they offer and even how -- and from whom -- users can buy an MSP's
core backup service. The MSP's choice and implementation of backup software,
data center infrastructure and recovery options are key features that companies
should examine to ensure the MSP meets their requirements. Delivering on corporate
recovery point and time objectives, supporting different corporate data retention
periods and managing fluctuations in daily corporate data change rates are key
variables that companies should include as part of their decision making process.

Evaluating MSPs

MSPs that offer backup services generally self-classify themselves according
to one of these three categories -- SOHO, SMB or enterprise -- so determining
which class an MSP falls into is generally as simple as asking the MSP or reviewing
its web site or product literature. To make an informed decision as to which
MSP a company should select is based on other criteria not so immediately evident.

One criterion that companies should evaluate is each MSP's potential for handling
future growth. MSPs may differ significantly in the total number of physical
sites that it manages, how much total data it manages and how it grows and manages
its infrastructure as the total amount of data it receives from its clients
fluctuates and grows.

For example, about 90% of AmeriVault's
(Waltham, MA) data storage infrastructure is EMC midrange Clariion though it
is experimenting with storage arrays from NetApp and Nexsan. AmeriVault finds
that it can help lower its client's backup costs by first archiving infrequently
accessed customer data to lower cost tiers of storage prior to actually implementing
its backup service since it will need to store less of the client's backed up
data on AmeriVault's primary EMC storage.

How MSPs monitor and respond to hourly, daily or weekly changes in corporate
data volumes as well as corporate data volume growth is another differentiator.
Fluctuations and growth in corporate data traffic and storage may impact how
quickly data is backed up and recovered. J.A.M. Distributing's MIS Director,
Scott Restivo receives daily reports from his MSP, Terian
Solutions, and can now quickly quantify how long backups take. Using his
previous backup software, he never really knew how long or what data he was
backing up but now, says Restivo, "I know to the GB how much data I nightly
back up."

Finally, MSPs should be able to explain how they account for peak periods or
sudden spikes in network traffic and how quickly they can grow their storage
capacity over time, though one should only expect these reports from MSPs targeting
SMBs and enterprise customers. MSPs such as AmeriVault can produce reports that
quantify what percentage of its bandwidth is utilized during peak periods as
well as quantify what excess storage capacity they have on hand. AmeriVault
uses these reports to do trending to keep sufficient unused capacity available
for sudden growth but can also more easily ramp up with more network and storage
capacity when new clients sign up for its service. However the reports consumers
should expect and what they will pay for backup services from an MSP can vary
dramatically.

Cost Is King

MSPs targeting SOHO clients receive almost no technical end user scrutiny for
one simple reason: Cost is king. Features that one should typically expect from
an MSP supporting SOHOs include:

Annual price for under $100/year per client

Free email support

Little or no in-depth reporting

Optional fee-based recovery options such as a CD or thumb drive

Web based recoveries

However with this attractive price point come limitations in terms of what
services users should expect when performing backups and recoveries.

For instance, users should exercise caution in using these SOHO MSPs to back
up applications that require certain files to remain open all or most of the
time. Though most now integrate and support open files for desktop applications
such as Microsoft Access or Outlook, any specialized applications or databases
that users constantly keep open may never have their files successfully backed
up.

Recovering data can also become an adventure. Recoveries are almost always limited
to web-based recoveries so if users need to recover data in another fashion,
such as receive the data on a CD or USB thumb drive, it may take up to a week
to receive the data at an extra cost.

The Differences Emerge

MSPs servicing businesses with 50 or more employees and higher amounts of data
to back up on a nightly basis (50 GB or greater) will share certain characteristics
but will also differ in what other support services they offer and even from
whom users might obtain their services. MSPs providing backup services to these
clients will typically share some common features, including the use of agentless
backup software, WAN optimization, redundant data centers, high bandwidth network
pipes and support for multiple operating systems. Key differences that will
emerge between MSPs include:

Account management

Data management

Recovery options

MSPs support new and existing clients in two general ways. MSPs generally use
their own account managers which are assigned after a user contacts them though
users find out about backup services from MSPs in a number of ways, the majority
of which come from Internet search engines. AmeriVault's Marketing Director,
Scott Bush, says, "Greater than 75% of our clients find us after doing
a Google search."

DS3 DataVaulting
(Chantilly, VA) also uses account managers but users may end up dealing with
a value added reseller (VAR). Stacy Hayes, DS3 DataVaulting's COO, finds it
can more cost-effectively deliver backup services through VARs who already have
existing client relationships. "DS3's secret sauce is buying storage in
quantity and delivering economies of scale," says Hayes, "so we can
economically deliver backup services to users through the channel."

MSPs can also differ in how they optimize the management of client data as
part of the backup process. MSPs generally price their backup service based
on how much data clients back up so any steps clients can take to minimize how
much data they back up or on what tier of storage they keep it while they store
it with the MSP will help users keep their backup costs down. One feature of
Asigra Televaulting backup software used by AmeriVault is that it generates
reports about how old data is and how frequently it is accessed. Users can then
use those reports to back up data less frequently or even justify archiving
the data with the MSP so users do not need to back up the data at all.

Finally not all applications can stand lengthy application outages (greater
than 1 hour). MSPs using only backup software can generally deliver recoveries
of files in less than an hour. However when needing to recover an entire application
which may have tens of GBs of data associated it with it, rebuild times using
backup software could run into the hours, which is not acceptable for every
application.

To augment this, some MSPs offer high availability options where users can do
near real-time replication of certain applications to their data center so users
can perform near real-time application recoveries. MSPs like AmeriVault and
DS3 DataVaulting both offer this optional add-on service for which users can
pay an additional fee for hot-site disaster recovery for specific applications.
DS3 DataVaulting COO Hayes says, "Once we have your data, users can choose
between hot, lukewarm and cold application recovery options."

Choosing the right MSP to provide backup services for your company is now a
more complicated selection process than just doing a Google search and choosing
the first one that happens to appear in the Google search results. MSPs now
go well beyond offering basic server backup and recovery options with MSPs segmenting
into SOHO, SMB and enterprise class offerings. While all provide online backup
services, not all do it the same way or use the same backup software.

MSPs servicing SOHOs will generally provide agent-based products, low costs
and little or no ongoing support. MSPs servicing the SMB and enterprise markets
will generally offer agentless software, deeper technical reports and assist
users in determining how much of their data they need to back up, how much network
bandwidth they need and even help users minimize the amount of data they need
to back up. However users who need near real-time recoveries should consider
holding out for enterprise class MSPs who can offer these higher levels of service.

DCIG Inc.