Symmetric IT Group Increases Margins with All-in-One BCDR Solution

Expensive and Complex BDR Solutions Cut MSP Profits

Tampa Managed Cloud Security and IT Services Provider, Symmetric IT Group is no stranger to natural disasters, which is why they value their business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) above all else. After transitioning from the on-prem, tape backup world to a cloud-based solution, Symmetic IT Group was disappointed with new problems. George Lakiotis, CEO and vCIO of Symmetric IT Group, describes their initial solution, “It was overcomplicated, overpriced, and took forever to set up. Backups were slow and if there was a problem – forget it – you were on the phone for hours.”

Symmetric IT Group’s time spent navigating complex management tasks was distracting and frustrating techs, increasing client costs and hurting their bottom line. George says, “It made us less profitable. The longer we have to sit on the phone with a vendor troubleshooting something, the less profitable we’re able to be.” With tickets coming in multiple times a week, it became apparent that Symmetric IT Group needed a new solution.

x360Recover with Chain-Free Backups Enables Speed, Flexibility, Choice

Symmetric IT Group needed simple backup efficiency that worked without issue. After demoing some products, George was shocked by what the market offered.

Everybody was as slow as molasses. It took forever for a backup to get from the site to the solution, and that wasn’t going to work for us.” Luckily, the Axcient x360Recover for BCDR demo went better. George says, “It was awesome. It blew our minds. We started a backup job on a Friday, thinking it would be done by Sunday, and it finished Saturday morning.”

Since then, Symmetric IT Group has relied on x360Recover for BCDR and recently started using the hardware-free deployment option, Direct-to-Cloud (D2C), for cloud-based backup in the Axcient Cloud. George praises D2C as a solution for budget-conscious clients who want to avoid expensive device costs and maintenance, as well as for lowering internal resources typically spent on on-site visits and device management. With that said, the ability to meet both traditional, appliance-based backup needs and cloud-based, hardware-free backup needs with only one solution provides flexibility without complexity and cost.

Axcient’s BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) compatibility allows Symmetric IT Group to provide appliances that match budgets. George explains, “It’s been extremely beneficial for our smaller clients who can’t spend thousands of dollars on a device. Sometimes, we’re able to find equipment for much less while ensuring business continuity with an on-prem appliance.”

Additionally, Axcient’s proprietary Chain-Free backup technology eliminates the manual reseeding and time-consuming restore tasks contributing to recovery time, increased management costs, and lower profits. “With x360Recover, we don’t have to restore all the incrementals from the last full backup. We can either pick the last one and recover, or spin up the hard drive, pull the deleted data, and copy it over to the client. Or, if we want to see what changed in an environment – and we use this a lot for auditing purposes – we spin up a copy of the server, see what changed or how the server was set up before changes, and we spin them up. I absolutely love that feature.” Being able to compare the live server with the virtualized backup allows for faster restore after accidental deletions, which occur often.

For remote clients, Direct-to-Cloud is just so much easier than having to wait until they get into the office and then back up to the device, back up to the appliance. Direct-to-Cloud solved that problem by sending backups directly off-site. I am very happy with it.”  – George Lakiotis, CEO and vCIO of Symmetric IT Group