Tampa Bay Tech Solutions Increases Monthly Revenue by $12,000 After Leaving Datto

When Cost No Longer Makes Sense

Tampa Bay Tech Solutions first used StorageCraft for image-based backups, but the MSP’s President, Todd Maddex, describes the partnership as “all promise and no delivery.” They sought a new provider to accelerate recovery, reduce client downtime, and get out of their self-managed cloud.

At the time, Todd believed that Datto’s recovery capabilities were worth the inflated expense to ensure uninterrupted business continuity. He explains, “You had to pay those prices because there wasn’t any other option to have image-based backups that could spin up in the cloud and rapidly recover from ransomware.” Additionally, Tampa Bay Tech Solutions required ConnectWise integration, which Datto also offered. With these boxes checked, Todd sold his clients on Datto and migrated from StorageCraft. Unfortunately, new issues emerged.

Todd says, “Everything that Datto promised as far as their integration with ConnectWise never worked correctly. I would randomly scroll through clients and see they weren’t backing up. But there was no ticket or no information about why. We were constantly struggling with that.” Furthermore, hardware limitations forced Tampa Bay Tech Solutions to increase customer prices, which did not fly with Todd.

We were a Datto partner for about five years, and we were struggling with the price, the support, and minor upgrades to their hardware. Their hardware was very expensive, and even though it had open bays for new hard drives, Datto makes you upgrade to the next device – which sometimes costs thousands of dollars. We were really getting nickeled and dimed, and our clients were getting beat up by it. – Todd Maddex, President of Tampa Bay Tech Solutions

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Comprehensive BCDR + BYOD = Seamless Vendor Migration

Tampa Bay Tech Solutions needed a new vendor but didn’t want their clients inconvenienced by price hikes, new equipment, or a disruptive migration. The new solution needed to integrate with ConnectWise effectively and allow clients to scale up and down easily and within budget. After gaining insight from a current Axcient partner and completing an x360Recover trial, Todd chose Axcient as his new business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) vendor.

Todd took advantage of Axcient’s “BYOD” or Bring Your Own Device policies to drive choice and flexibility for his clients. He says, “Finding out that we could repurpose Datto devices was a game changer since I’d already sold my clients on the hardware, which was very expensive. I told them that to prevent a price increase and continue with a great backup solution, we were pivoting to Axcient. It didn’t cost them any more per month or require new hardware.” Todd and his team began converting the hardware in August with the goal of completion by January. Using Axcient support resources and the hardware-free deployment option, x360Recover Direct-to-Cloud (D2C), Tampa Bay Tech Solutions was able to complete conversion by the first week of September – almost three months ahead of schedule! The quick and simple conversion process allowed the MSP to move much faster than initially anticipated. Todd reports, “Toward the end of finishing conversions, I was doing four clients a day. I was in and out in about 45 minutes to an hour, with clients converted and backing up by the time I left. So, that was not bad at all.”

Using the x360Recover D2C deployment option also allowed Tampa Bay Tech Solutions to expand infrastructure choice and flexibility for its clients based on size, budget, and desires. Todd says, “Being able to have an appliance on-site or even just a USB drive that can be encrypted for people who don’t have the budget for an appliance – or maybe they’re remote, and we can’t get on-site – having D2C is a great option.” Furthermore, Tampa Bay Tech Solutions used D2C to quickly convert clients still on legacy file and folder backups to x360Recover. Because it was essentially the same price, Tampa Bay Tech Solutions could first convert these clients to ensure business continuity and later discuss the benefits of adding hardware for local image backup. Ultimately, Todd was able to upgrade client security without increasing prices.