Growing BCDR Offerings with the x360 Platform’s Unified Solutions

The Challenge

MSP Evolves from Legacy Backup to Comprehensive Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

XFER, and its CEO, Brandon Hartke, focus on helping clients grow using technology to improve business processes. Unfortunately, the technology offered by their BDR provider lacked stability, cost-efficient scalability, and innovation. At the time, XFER was using StorageCraft, which was acquired by Arcserve in 2021. Brandon says,

“There were always issues with StorageCraft because it was chain-based. As everything grows over time, the cost for the customer grows too, and we weren’t okay with that.”

Regardless of their direction, chain-based backups are time-consuming and slow because they require manual interventions and extensive resources for management, storage, and recovery. Fed up with the cost and inefficiency of legacy chains, Brandon sought an updated solution that could meet disparate client budgets and infrastructure requirements.

I don’t want to have to be an expert on this solution, and that solution, and Axcient, and 20 others in the market. If you do it that way, when you’re restoring from backup, you have to start by going to the flowchart to see which product the client has. And then you have to choose your own adventure as to where you go in that flow chart and how you do the restore. That’s complicated and complex and expensive.”

The Solution

Making the Most of Modern Flexibility and Innovation

Brandon was attracted to Axcient’s business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solution because it lets XFER adapt to different clients. With appliance and cloud-based deployment options, plus hardware-agnostic Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, XFER can help control client costs while driving profitability.

“With x360Recover, we can support a range of small businesses with one solution. We can run on-prem for fast local recovery or in the cloud for automatic cloud recovery using runbooks. We can help migrate to the cloud, and if a server crashes, we can spin up in the Axcient Cloud and restore to a different environment. We really use it as a multipurpose tool.”

XFER is also reducing operational costs with Axcient’s proprietary Chain-Free backup technology. Without chains, XFER and its clients now enjoy flat-fee pooled storage, custom and secure retention, and near-instant recovery without reseeding or consolidating. Furthermore, with automatic backup integrity testing, XFER has confidence in backups beyond the false security of a green check mark.

“AutoVerify gives you visual verification of the backup, so you know it will boot. If there’s an error, we’re alerted and can fix it before it becomes an issue. We can also use the automated reports or check on everything in real-time via the platform. Now we have multiple checks and balances on top of automation for high reliability.”

XFER converted all their clients to x360Recover and standardized on the x360 Platform. x360Cloud supports compliance with point-in-time restores for Microsoft 365 data, and XFER white labeled x360Sync as an encrypted file-level backup that can also cloud-enable servers.

“We use all of Axcient’s products because the platform is very simple and consolidated into a single pane of glass with just three SKUs. It gives us the flexibility to deliver complete backups, business continuity, and disaster recovery in creative ways.”

The Results

Consolidated Efficiency, Automated Data Protection, and a Partner to Grow With

Since centralizing its BCDR stack, XFER delivers custom services to clients with ease, high visibility, and robust cybersecurity. Chain-free technology, a streamlined user experience, and built-in automation help XFER optimize time and labor resources. Instead of troubleshooting issues, navigating between portals, and juggling manual requirements, XFER technicians are mastering BCDR procedures to add value for clients.

For example, a client told XFER to delete some of its data and then two weeks later said it was a mistake. They needed the data back, but it had already been deleted from the server and off of XFER’s accessible data store. Luckily, XFER has built-in, always-on, automatic ransomware and data-deletion technology. Utilizing the AirGap feature in x360Recover, XFER decommissioned the server and turned it off in the vault to initiate a recovery scenario from the protected snapshot stored in the AirGap archive. Brandon explains,

“We created a service ticket, reached out to Axcient support, and they gave us multiple options for recovery. Whether we wanted to download it or have a drive shipped, we got all the data from the last backup. That was huge for our clients and a big relief for us. We didn’t have to have that hard data loss conversation every MSP hates.”

Where They Are Now:

Moving forward, XFER plans to continue relying on Axcient for BCDR. Brandon feels that XFER and Axcient are aligned on where the market is going and what MSPs need to meet the evolving landscape. Leveraging regular product updates, new platform features, and straightforward training, XFER is confident in the partnership now and through future growth.

“We’ve been with Axcient for so long because we’ve never had a reason to look for another solution. We’re happy with the partnership, Axcient’s consistency, and pricing fairness. We have the flexibility to increase profits and do exactly what we need to do with the solutions. Axcient makes it easy.”