Axcient Includes Pooled Storage at a Flat Fee
Axcient has included pooled data storage as part of our business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions for years. In this post, we’re breaking down what exactly is included, how we do it, and why we’re different from the other guys.
In this article:
- Compare Axcient’s data storage to other solution providers.
- Understand our Fair Use Policy and how Axcient includes pooled data storage as a built-in, always-on feature for all of our BCDR solutions.
- See how a predictable flat fee and elimination of surprise data storage overages positively affect MSP profits and total cost of ownership, as well as client relations.
Table of Contents
Transparency in Your Data Storage Limits and Details
As we all know, marketing claims are just that – they’re claims. We strive to be straightforward, and Axcient’s Fair Use Policy is public and written in plain language.
At Axcient, we don’t do tiered pricing, so there’s no option to upgrade or downgrade – most use cases get ample storage for a simple flat fee price per device or per server with no surprise overage fees because data pooling is permitted per our Fair Use Policy.
Consider the reason it is called a Fair Use Policy; most reasonable use cases an MSP backs up fall below the cap on data storage. Extraordinary edge use cases do exceed our Fair Use ceiling. Axcient’s policy allows for each server cloud backup to add 3 TB to Fair Use Cloud Storage, and each desktop cloud backup adds 300 GB to Fair Use Cloud Storage. When pooled, few of Axcient’s partners exceed the data storage limits.
When doing your due diligence on storage and retention, these are the questions you need to ask:
Does it cover all use cases?
Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need endpoint, server, and cloud-to-cloud backup, which means MSPs need solutions for all use cases. This is where a lot of MSPs accumulated overlapping solutions that lead to vendor sprawl. In an attempt to satisfy a range of clients, MSPs can grow their stack to the point that the staffing and management required is cutting profits and increasing their recurring costs.
Axcient x360Recover solves most business use cases with just one solution – endpoint backup, appliance-based backup, hardware-free BDR, turn-key BDR, and public or private cloud backup. Plus, at Axcient, we don’t do tiered pricing, so there’s no option to upgrade or downgrade – most use cases get plenty of storage for a simple flat fee price.
What does “pooled” actually mean?
At Axcient, pooled means aggregated storage. Axcient backs up any volume of data you have – C drive, D drive, and so on. If you have multiple
hard drives and storage devices, we back those up too. x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud backs up all servers, regardless of their size. We don’t do tiered pricing, so your robust storage with data pooling is included with your Axcient partnership per our Fair Use Policy. No strings attached, with clear data ceilings, so no surprise overage fees.
Other backup providers rely on tiered storage and retention options that can be cost-prohibitive at all levels. Multiple tiers usually mean there are numerous ways the vendor is cutting down on the storage advertised. Often, there are complex restrictions on the amount of backup allowed or the type of backup the vendor supports. For example, vendors commonly limit C drive backups to 1 TB of data or less, and some vendors cannot cloud-backup servers at all. Higher overhead costs from pricing that favors the vendor will lower profits, so be sure those extra expenses add value to your MSP and your clients.
What is the pricing structure?
Complex pricing can be a way to hide insufficient data limit tiers, limit data pooling, and hide caps that push costs higher than expected. Axcient’s simple pricing allows data pooling and is a flat cost billed per desktop or per server. If an MSP has edge use case(s) and exceed the aggregated storage of 3 TB per server or 300 GB per workstation, then they pay $.05 per GB for the data use over their pooled or aggregated storage allotted to them.
We Do It With Propriety Chain-Free Backup Technology
Axcient includes flat fee data storage without inflated costs because we have the proprietary technology to remove the pain point of data bloat. As a 100% MSP-only solution provider, we’re focused on enabling MSP growth with best-in-class innovation and automation. Axcient’s modern Chain-Free backup technology differs from legacy solutions in that you don’t have to manually manage chains or spend time reseeding, and it requires less storage altogether.
In traditional chain-based backup, each forward-facing, incremental backup depends on the previous incremental backup. Reverse and “inverse” chains suffer the same dependency problems, and the very nature of chain-based backup leads to data bloat.
When undetected data loss occurs, it can cause catastrophic data loss due to the dependent nature of the chains. All the backups occurring after the data corruption are entirely unusable, and a whole new chain has to be started with another full backup and reseed, which can take days. Additionally, because the original backup and chain have to be maintained, chain-based backup wastes a lot of precious storage. The data bloat of chain-based legacy backup technology is one significant contributing reason why other vendors don’t offer robust flat fee storage. But Axcient can, with data pooling and with upper limits that accommodate most MSP use cases.
Why Axcient’s Patented Chain-Free Backup is Awesome
Chain-Free backup starts the same way as chain-based – you still do your first full backup, and you still do incremental backups, but data is stored in a native virtualized state with a pointer array algorithm. That means each recovery point is independent.
Now, when corruption occurs, bad data blocks are isolated and can be independently deleted without risking the integrity of your backup dataset. Previous backups can still be recovered, and there is no disruption to new incremental backups and the data post-corruption. Chain-Free backup means no data loss or overprovisioning and no wasting time or storage having to start new chains or reseed.
Our Chain-Free tech also enables:
- Pooled Storage: Now that storage capacity and data bloat aren’t problems because there isn’t any duplicated backup data, so there aren’t large storage space requirements or over-provisioning “just in case.”
- Long-term Retention: Easily meet multi-year compliance standards and shorten recovery time with always-available backup data. Because the points of failure don’t increase with each backup, and since there are no dependencies to break, each backup is entirely independent.
- Near-instant Recovery: No chains means no base image requirements for restore, no consolidation, and no staging space. It significantly reduces the complexity of recovery to ensure uninterrupted business continuity.
- Worry-Free Flat Pricing: Axcient partners pay a flat fee billed monthly per device or per server with pooled storage, so there’s no risk of surprise overages
Why MSPs Are Choosing Flat Fee Pooled Storage with Axcient
Pooled data storage for a predictable monthly fee offers MPS and their clients more than just stress relief and predictable monthly costs…
Long-term Compliance: With legacy chain-based solutions, the set of potential failure points compounds with time. The longer the backup chain, the more susceptible to corruption the entire backup dataset becomes. MSPs have to start the chain over every one to two years with almost no exceptions.
With Chain-Free backup, there are no time constraints on how long you can backup data without needing to start over. This is especially important for clients in highly regulated industries like healthcare, legal and financial services, and government that requires three, five, seven, or even 10-year retention periods. Even if you lose a few backups due to corruption, you do not lose the data because each Chain-Free backup is independent of other backups. The corrupt pieces of data can be isolated without affecting the rest of the backups.
Efficiency and Ease of Management: Legacy chain-based solutions require manual and time-consuming processes to start initially, for ongoing management, and to start over when corruption occurs. As time passes, chain-based technology’s vulnerability to corruption increases with each passing day and requires that new chains be started annually or bi-annually. Having to take a new base or full image backup to start a backup chain from scratch, reseed the data after the new base is created, and manage the old chain – often copying it onto some kind of storage media—demands dedicated time, expertise, and overall, costs, that could be spent otherwise.
Chain-Free backup eliminates all of that extra work. Because each backup is independent, there is no chain to break and no need to rebase or reseed. MSP technicians can focus on value-added tasks rather than adding to vendor management costs.
Security For All Clients: Tiered storage and retention options tempt clients to choose lower-quality protections that could compromise their ability to recover or meet compliance standards. The high pricepoint of the best tiers will price SMBs out or eat into an MSPs margin.
Providing tiers implies that storage and retention caps will still deliver business continuity and data protection when that is not guaranteed if the solution is inadequate. MSPs could be liable for failing to fully protect their clients in states where regulations penalize MSPs when their clients suffer a breach. Limited data storage puts both MSPs and their clients in jeopardy of losing critical data and puts their businesses and reputations on the line.
Axcient’s flat fee per endpoint or server provides ample storage per our Fair Use Policy for nearly all clients types and sizes, and MSPs can ensure their clients are getting the best solution available to keep their data protected. MSPs can cultivate and build on a trustworthy relationship with clients without uncomfortable and reoccurring conversations about storage overages and surprise fees. Built-in protections like data pooling, exceptional security, and predictable costs show clients that their MSP understands the benefits of the cloud and hybrid environments and is securing their business to withstand today’s cybersecurity landscape.
x360Recover with an appliance and x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud are built using Axcient’s Chain-Free technology to provide data storage and secure long-term retention to give MSPs a single, reliable backup platform to enable overall business growth. Axcient goes above and beyond legacy technology to solve long-term retention and data bloat while delivering on the economic promise of the cloud. We make cloud storage affordable and attractive for all companies, regardless of size. See what your MSP could do with storage by taking an inside look at Axcient. Start Your Free 14-Day Trial Now!
“The Chain-Free technology was one of the things that made me a lot more comfortable with Axcient. Effectively, the chain is just two pieces long: the most recent backup and the base image. That helps me sleep a lot better – knowing that I’m not dependent on 15, 20, or 35 files all working as they should in order to do a recovery. When it’s crunch time, you don’t want any of that uncertainly.”
-PATRICK SALT, DIGITAL SEATTLE
Author
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