42% of MSPs Want to Consolidate Their BCDR Systems. Here’s How to Do It.

For years MSPs have been bulking up their stacks to fight the latest and greatest cyberattacks targeting their SMB clients. Today, however, the tipping point has been reached as more MSPs realize higher profits with slimmed-down stacks and all-in-on business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR).

According to a recent survey of MSPs by Axcient in partnership with Channelnomics, “42% of MSPs are considering replacing and consolidating their existing BCDR with better, more efficient systems, and 40% are looking for BCDR systems that have a lower total cost of ownership to reduce pressure on their labor expenses.” Despite the channel’s desires, many MSPs struggle to find an efficient system worth the work of making a switch. Luckily, those who have mastered the art of consolidation are seeing recurring operational costs go down while margins and profits rise.

In this article…

• Get a fresh perspective on today’s cybersecurity landscape and remind yourself of the real threats to data security.
• Understand the difference between backups, business continuity, disaster recovery, and BCDR to make sure you’re living up to your SLAs.
• See why MSPs are prioritizing stack efficiency and consolidation in the quest for reliable recovery and business-wide MSP growth.

The Complications of Complexity

Data security used to be about protecting client data. Today, it’s about recovering client data. After years of investing in multi-layer security approaches with additional services and extra tools, we discovered that it really wasn’t working. While some MSPs allowed new clients to bring over their old tools to grow their client base, others were willing to take on anything that promised the best in protection – and many products do that. Unfortunately, successful ransomware attacks continue to rise year over year, along with phishing strategies that, seemingly, no amount of cyber training can combat. Sure, the bad guys are bad, but it’s people who are giving them the keys to the castle.

“The human element continues to drive breaches. This year 82% of breaches involved the human element. Whether using stolen credentials, Phishing, Misuse, or simply an Error, people continue to play a very large role in incidents and breaches alike.”

– 2022 DATA BREACH INVESTIGATION REPORT (DBIR)

With these realities hitting us over the head, it’s become apparent that more isn’t always more. These complex stacks show no signs of better protecting data, and they threaten an MSPs ability to recover quickly. Technicians are forced to learn multiple systems, thus diminishing their capacity to master any of them. During critical recovery windows, they lose speed while wading through disparate, disjointed processes. Additionally, managing more systems demands a higher level of expertise from techs, which means more money for operational expenses. Overall, the intention was in the right place, but in practice, a complex stack is just that – complex.

“Standardization is paramount to everything that we do. Without it, we can’t offer the level of service that our clients expect, and if we didn’t do it, we wouldn’t be able to support our clients. It would be impossible. Just too many different things. It really makes it easier on techs when everything is familiar, and it’s a lot less stressful for everyone when everything is more or less the same.”

– MATT KUZBA, AXCIENT PARTNER AND VP AT NSR BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

Backups and BCDR: Why You Need Both

The backup-only strategy for data protection died when bad actors began targeting that recovery avenue. That said, backups are still necessary to keep your client’s businesses running, especially if they’re using Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. To deliver what you promise – uninterrupted data availability no matter what – you need backups. But backups alone can’t save you. Here’s why…

• 41% of organizations report inadequate backups and fail to meet SLAs.
• 80% of organizations say there’s a gap between their ability to recover and their need to recover.
• 37% of backup jobs had errors or could not complete in their allocated backup window. That means, potentially, over one-third of backups may not be restorable.
• 34% of all restorations fail to restore within the expected SLA.

“These statistics imply that only 63% of backups and 66% of restores will be successful with current legacy data protection. So ultimately, you’re only able to recover less than half of the time (42%).

So, if backups aren’t enough, and a complicated stack is expensive and limiting, what’s an MSP to do? Here’s where the combination of business continuity and disaster recovery in one, i.e., BCDR, is your saving grace. To deliver on the promise of business continuity, MSPs must be backing up all client systems – including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace – with a single platform that can do it all.

“It’s nice to have everything under one umbrella. One, the pricing is good. Two, I have direct data that our ticketing for failed backups and issues has dropped. I’m spending a quarter of the time now than I was before on trouble tickets and stuff like that regarding backups.”

– RYAN KEELE, AXCIENT PARTNER AND CIO AT MIDWEST COMPUTECH

Single Solution Strategy: Comprehensive, Consolidated, and Efficient

Simplifying data protection into one easy-to-use, feature-rich, channel-dedicated BCDR platform fuels the efficiency MSPs are looking for so they can lower the total cost of ownership, streamline operations, and increase profits. Here are three of the most accessible benefits of moving to all-in-one.

1. Faster recovery and higher solution expertise. Empower and delight your technicians by allowing them to focus on accelerating recovery speeds with thorough disaster recovery planning and testing. Meet competitive SLAs, retain technicians longer, and hire less expensive technicians.
2. Lower operational and recurring costs. Fewer solutions that can do more cost less. Instead of paying multiple vendors for redundant capabilities, standardize and cut out those monthly expenses. Plus, with lower-skilled technicians and fewer technicians required, you’re cutting labor costs.
3. Fewer support resources are required (a.k.a. costs). Vendor shakeups like buy-outs, acquisitions, and audience diversification push MSPs to the back of the line. As vendors widen their scope beyond the channel, MSPs are left footing the bill for the time and resources required to work with legacy products, no longer getting the attention they once did.

“Since we started standardizing on Axcient, we started seeing profitability. We’ve been able to grow exponentially, and now we’re at a level we never thought possible. The more we simplify, the more profitable we get.”

– NEIL HAWKINS, AXCIENT PARTNER AND COO AT LANAIR GROUP, LLC

One Platform to Protect Everything for Better Business Results

As a 100% MSP-only solution provider, Axcient is dedicated to solving MSP problems through product design and development. In doing so, we’ve created a single platform where MSPs can manage BCDR for all business operations – including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backup – in a single, multi-tenant management platform that allows you to simplify your stack with ease. With x360Recover for BCDR and x360Cloud for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace under one roof, MSPs eliminate the pains and costs of vendor sprawl. Leveraging automation and innovation in the x360Portal, MSPs are overcoming legacy processes like manual backup checks and reseeding. At the same time, they can provide uninterrupted business continuity no matter how data is deleted.

It really is this simple…

Fewer vendors = lower vendor management costs. Hardware-free and cloud-based deployments in a single solution reduce redundancy and satisfy most business use cases including endpoint backup, no-appliance BDR, turn-key BDR, and public and private cloud backup.

>> Download: Reference Architecture and Its Impact on Solution Provider Maturity, Efficiency, and Profitability

Backup innovation = higher operational maturity. Labor-saving Chain-Free backups replace legacy chain-based backups, so you never need to reseed, you get storage without overages, custom and secure retention, and near-instant recovery without manual interventions – no base image requirements, no consolidation, and no staging space.

>> Download: BCDR Buyer’s Guide – How to Choose the Best BCDR Solution for Your MSP

“Axcient gave us unbeatable prices and capabilities that really impressed us. Support has always been there for us – no matter the time or effort. Our technicians swear by Axcient, and I really can’t say enough positive things about the partnership.”

– BENJAMIN JONES, AXCIENT PARTNER AND DIR. OF CYBERSECURITY AT CENTRAL TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

Next Steps Toward Consolidation

Schedule a 1:1 demo or start your free 14-day trial now to see how Axcient’s single solution for comprehensive BCDR and Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backup can help your MSP. Don’t let inefficiency and vendor sprawl steal your profits. Instead, make the Axcient switch for almost immediate ROI on your migration. It’s easier than you think to lower recurring costs for new profit highs.