Axcient x360Recover Adds Direct-to-Cloud
and Virtual Office for Hardware-Free and Self-Managed BCDR
Axcient released Direct-to-Cloud, for hardware-free BDR in October 2020 as a built-in feature of Axcient x360Recover. Since then, we’ve added Virtual Office (VO) for self-managed disaster recovery as part of our agile roll-out of new benefits. Adam Preeo, Axcient Director of Product Management, and Corey Banner, Axcient Director of Customer Success, met up with Kevin Dunn, the CEO of Data Trends Technology, and a 10-year Axcient Partner, to get his thoughts on these new innovations.
Keep reading, or watch the discussion on our Axcient Facebook page. ‘Follow’ us for regular FB Live Chat events with MSP leaders, solution providers, and technicians to stay current on what’s trending in the channel.
What is Direct-to-Cloud and Virtual Office?
Simply put, Axcient Direct-to-Cloud removes the need for hardware – and the costs, stress, maintenance, and unpredictability of appliances – by backing up directly to the cloud. Not only are your remote workers and endpoints backed up, but you can quickly recover anything from a single file, to an entire system in an instant. With more people working from anywhere, Direct-to-Cloud enables safe, protected, remote collaboration and access, without the firewalls and security structure only available in-office.
Adam says, “With Direct-to-Cloud you have lots of options for protecting remote workers, in-office workers, using local BDR, and no BDR. Our position has been to make our solutions very flexible for our MSP Partners in terms of how they take backup and recovery to their customers.”
Learn more about Direct-to-Cloud and lowering your TCO >>
Virtual Office (VO) lets MSPs manage cloud recovery for both single servers and an entire office independent of the Axcient support team. If there’s a disaster at a local office, VO can spin everything up in the right order, in a quick period of time, rather than waiting on support. Both Direct-to-Cloud and VO come built-in to x360Recover, along with Chain-Free backup and Axcient AirGap, as part of the most cost-effective business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solution for MSPs.
Direct-to-Cloud: “Quick setup”, “good price point”, and “versatility”…
Kevin didn’t hide his excitement about the new Direct-to-Cloud option from Axcient, and goes on to explain his first interaction. “Out of the box, the set up time for us, without any training, was about 30 minutes to get into the dashboard, add a client, and add a server. The download buttons are right there and we were able to pull in the agent.” Kevin continues, “…We set up three servers in less than an hour on day one. We’ve been very successful in rolling it out. We’ve added multiple clients on, and it’s a good fit right now.”
In addition to ease-of-use, Kevin explains how well Direct-to-Cloud fits the needs of his SMB clients. “The price point is really good for small business. It’s a good competitor and the virtual capabilities in it – being able to have your Virtual Office up and running – well, it has features that you don’t get with the big box competitors.” Kevin is seeing a lot of success with Direct-to-Cloud, and the complete x360Recover solution. He says it makes a lot of sense for clients who don’t have the budget for a larger application, and have smaller data sets in the 2TB range.
With unlimited storage and retention included, clients don’t need to worry about storage overages, surprise fees, or growing their data beyond their budget. Kevin says, “You can sell this at a fixed price with unlimited growth. You don’t have to have hardware locally, which needs to get upgraded every however many years, and you can have multiple agents running. So it really just comes down to what your bandwidth is, to what you can do with this product.”
Speaking to Axcient’s agile roll-out plan, which delivers new features and functionality every couple of weeks, Kevin says, “It’s a really versatile product and kudos to Axcient. It’s being upgraded constantly. They listen to everything that is coming back from the channel. We’re really happy with how the product is working.”
Some other Direct-to-Cloud highlights that Kevin mentioned include…
- Compatibility: “It’s also friendly with other backup solutions. So let’s say you’re running Acronis. You can still run Acronis, and you can still have your cloud-based backup happening with Axcient Direct-to-Cloud.”
- File access and restore capabilities: “You can mount a drive, and then click on the drive, and it shows you the folder structure. You can drill through it, you can pull files back from that, you can do a bare metal restore from that, or you can bring it right up in the cloud and run remotely if your equipment is damaged.”
- Only 200 MB of RAM per TB stored (50x less RAM than typically necessary): “It’s block chain, so they’re not huge backups. You can have continuous backups running and keep your products relatively current in the cloud for what you’re working on, which is important for clients who are transactionally driven.”
- Axcient AirGap: “Plus it has AirGap, and that’s pretty unique to Axcient … You need something like AirGap, which actually puts a barrier in between your cloud backup, and the button that says ‘delete.’ Those guys think they’re successful in deleting, but they’re not because you have a gap that lasts for 30 days. So your data is still safe and untouched.”
Value-added Virtual Office covers your worst case scenario.
Virtual Office (VO) was only added to x360Recover a couple days prior to our FB Live Chat with Kevin, so Adam spoke to the new features and benefits available for MSPs. In addition to the time-savings of self-managed disaster recovery – no Axcient support necessary – VO is there no matter what the compromise. When you’ve lost local backup through any sort of disaster, VO spins up multiple servers quickly. And with runbooks coming out in 2021, you’ll be able to pre-plan disaster recovery for up to 100 servers, based on the configuration you desire.
Disaster recovery testing is also available anytime with VO. You can complete quarterly testing to show clients that their entire office – including every server, workstation, desktop, and laptop – can be spun up in order. Clients get a report proving data security, and you both gain peace of mind and confidence in x360Recover. Adam says, “Your clients now know the value that you’re providing to them without actually going through a disaster. They don’t have to wait for that disaster to happen to know everything works, and if they lose their local, and have a worst case scenario – with Axcient, and the AirGap technology, we always have you covered.”
Now it’s your turn!
You know what Kevin and Data Trends Technology think of these new features, but what about you? See the entire x360Recover BCDR solution in action with your free 14-day trial. No credit card required and no obligation. Consider the spike in ransomware and phishing attacks, the influx of remote workers, and the unknowns of 2021, to make sure your MSP has the solutions necessary to keep clients protected, no matter what.
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About the Author:
Liz Mellem // Technical Copywriter, Axcient
Liz Mellem has been a freelance copywriter for over three years in the technology, education, and alternative medicine industries. She produces content, sales collateral, and email marketing campaigns that contribute to digital marketing strategies for sales growth and brand awareness. In her free time, Liz enjoys reading, exploring Austin, and Netflix with her cat, Harlem.