eFolder Partner Lliam Holmes, CEO of MIS Solutions in Suwanee GA, reviews the five key technologies in AppAssure that can improve partner profits. In this one hour webinar, Lliam reviews the benefits of the eFolder AppAssure Cloud. Come hear Lliam dive deep into the whys and hows:
- Why AppAssure + eFolder = Data integrity + Fast recovery
- How AppAssure reveals hidden problems in Windows server setup
- Why de-duplication and chain-free retention yield low costs and high margins
- How the new eFolder Continuity Cloud enables in-the-cloud virtualization
- Why it sells
Webinar: eFolder Expert Series: Five Technologies from AppAssure to Boost Your Backup Profits
1. Five Unique Technologies from
AppAssure to Boost Your Backup Profits
Ted Hulsy
VP of Marketing, eFolder
415-235-6087
ehulsy@efolder.net
Lliam Holmes
CEO, MIS Solutions
www.mis-solutions.com
Hello. My name is Ted Hulsy. I am Vice President of Marketing at eFolder and your host for today’s event.Welcome to the eFolder Expert Series. This webinar series brings together experts from eFolder’s staff and partner community for deep dive discussions on key service and technical topics.Today we are joined by Lliam Holmes, CEO of MIS Solutions, in Suwanee, GA. In just a moment, I will further introduce Lliam.
Before we go through the agenda, let’s cover a few house keeping items.Today’s session is being recorded. The recorded version of the webinar will be made available for a limited time to the partners that are registered for the event. We will also make copies of the slides available those that attended the event.With over 125 people registered for the event, we have put all participants in listen only mode. You can enjoy the audio portion of today’s event by either streaming it your computer or by dialing in over the phone. Questions are strongly encouraged throughout. We have planned a special Q&A section at end of today’s discussion, but you may submit as we go along and we will try to address them on the fly.Now let me introduce our guest:Lliam Holmes, founder and CEO of MIS Solutions, has over 25 years experience in the IT industry. He has served in roles such as field tech, systems engineer, project manager, software developer, and business consultant.Before MIS Solutions, Lliam worked with many companies, including Bethco Inc., Optima Technologies and BravePoint, serving as consultant for Fortune 500 companies. Among his clients were such recognizable names as Nokia Cellular, NAPA Auto Parts, Eli Lilly, HGTV and Crozer-Keystone Hospitals.In 1995, he started MIS Solutions, a technology service and consulting firm serving Gwinnett and the Atlanta, Georgia area. In his current role, he is responsible for strategic direction, research and development, and operations at MIS Solutions — as well as strategic business consulting for clients. He enjoys serving others and helping business owners tackle challenges with innovative and creative solutions. As a leader, Lliam is also involved in a national operations group designed to serve managed services providers — as well as a best practices network monitoring and remediation group focused on creating network monitoring and issue remediation strategies. He is actively involved in his community and passionate about serving in the children’s ministry at his church.Welcome, Lliam.I am going to start out with a brief introduction to eFolder AppAssure Cloud and then turn things over to Lliam. Lliam will dig into the key technologies AppAssure employs to help deliver a more reliable backup and disaster recovery service offering. And we will conclude with a special section for your questions.
Organizations have to defend against three kinds of business interruptions:First, everyday disasters are incredibly common. Hardware failures, especially disk drive failures, occur all the time. Users delete or lose files. Corrupted software installs are common. Human error is a key contributor to everyday disasters.Natural disasters or site-wide disasters are far less common. They do happen however and the consequences for a business can be deadly. Fire or property insurance always seems like a needless expense, until you need it. The same goes for backup and disaster recovery preparedness. In some parts of the country – say in the Gulf Coast or in Tornado Alley – the likelihood of a site wide disaster is even higher. Most businesses can not survive the complete loss of their critical business data. If customer records, financials and accounting records are completely lost, most businesses would have a hard time recovering from such an event. Lastly, businesses need to guard against any kind of system downtime. In today’s competitive market, the fast eat the slow. Businesses can’t afford for their employees to be down, out of touch, or unproductive. Servers, workstations, and mobile assets need to operate at peak performance so knowledge workers, salespeople, engineers, and support personnel can get their day to day jobs done well. If disasters do occur, recovery has to be fast and complete.And you need to guarantee that the commitments or service agreements you have in place can be met or exceeded. The key to managed services is a chain of promises to clients about performance, uptime, and resiliency, in exchange for a flow of monthly revenue from these clients. When something does go wrong with the clients servers or infrastructure, you need to ensure that you can recover quickly and completely, without fail.
This diagram provides a simple overview of the main functions of the eFolder AppAssure Cloud.AppAssure and eFolder have joined forces to deliver the eFolder AppAssure Cloud, a service that replicates AppAssure bare metal backup images to the eFolder Storage Cloud and enables multiple disaster recovery options. This solution combines the power of AppAssure software with eFolder cloud backup and recovery services.This service will launch on April, 2012.Before turning things over to Lliam, let me just make a few comments on how a service like this works:AppAssure software periodically creates image-based, bare-metal backups from the client servers or workstations at pre-configured intervals The backup images are automatically backed up to a local storage environment running the AppAssure CORE The local AppAssure CORE replicates the images to a fully managed AppAssure CORE in the eFolder AppAssure CloudeFolder delivers various system monitoring, data privacy, and data integrity technologies to guarantee the success and reliability of the images contained in the eFolder Storage Cloud In the event of server outage, the AppAssure software enables fast, on-site recovery to physical or virtual environments or to dissimilar hardware In the event of local disaster that destroys a location or the servers, eFolder supplies multiple recovery options for the bare-metal images stored in the eFolder Storage Cloud, including download, expedited shipment of the images on disk/NAS device, or rapid virtualization in
Ok. That was a brief introduction to the eFolder AppAssure Cloud. Now let me turn it over to our expert, Lliam.[Lliam should give additional biographical detail here.As mentioned before, Lliam is the CEO of MIS Solutions. MIS Solutions is a Managed Service Provider in Suwanee Georgia that specializes in Small to Medium sized businesses with a focus on customers in the 20 to 200 desktop arena.*** MIS Solutions was founded in 1995 and has developed specific expertise in business continuity. Some of these technologies include SAN, clustering, virtualization and disaster recovery.How did you first find and meet the eFolder gang?We used StorageCraftDid a large amount of customization and development around the Shadowprotect platformWere seeking an offsite provider that met with our standardsWe started looking at AppAssure because of several key factors to include things like:Data de-duplicationCentralized consoleBetter reportingBetter virtualization supportRapid stream support.Better support for the mainstream Microsoft applications to include: ExchangeHonestly – the list goes on-and-onThis quickly changed our focus…. We now needed a partner that would be able to truly integrate with AppAssureWe knew how important this was to us so we really started looking under every rock.Ran into eFolder at a MSP Marketing group that we participate inWe KNEW from speaking to our peers that eFolder was a “trusted” backup providerWe started a dialog with eFolder about creating what has come to be known as the eFolder Continuity Cloud
When we first started looking at our BDR solutions we were really only interested in finding a truly reliable off-site option; what we actually found was two companies that each respectively were the best at what they did.We have always been about the RECOVERY part – we see a lot of companies focusing on the backup part and paying very little attention to the recovery part – this has become our niche.In general terms, when we went looking for a solution we were wanting to really close the gap on items like: - Restore times - Utilization of drive space - Eliminate chain failures - Introduce Application integrity checks – Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server and SharePoint - Provide a truly viable method for a true facility failureWe found that with AppAssure we have been able to take advantage of all of these items – and several other things that we hadn’t thought of.In terms of what we have seen as the top 5 technologies that are baked into AppAssurre – we see them above.[talk about each of the 5 listed above – quick intro for each feature]
As I am sure everyone is aware – email in most organizations is CRITICAL; they need it up and running ALL OF THE TIME.Microsoft Exchange has always been particularly cumbersome to restore QUCIKLY – dirty shutdowns in the backups, messing around with the transaction logs, creating Recovery Storage Groups – lets face it there are a lot of moving parts to an Exchange Server and fast recovery can take some time.AppAssure addresses some these complexities with the major Microsoft applications like SharePoint, Exchange and SQL Server; this is done by ACTUALLY testing on a scheduled basis IF these databases are intact – I don’t know of another product on the market that is able to do this.
Let’s face it – data growth is unprecedented, with things like HIPAA, PCI, SOX and PACS your customers storage needs are growing very quickly.Even with very large hard drives it can be difficult to retain backups effectively within a complaint retention period.This is what de-duplication is all about… this technology alone can reduce your overall storage needs by a signifficant amount
[Ted will close out the last two slides, before formal Q&A]eFolderhelps partners adapt to a fast changing technology landscape. Partners can leverage the power of the cloud, while managing the natural migration of infrastructure from on-premises to cloud-based deployments.With eFolder’s unique business model, partners control the client relationship. eFolder allows partners build unique and differentiated offerings, with your own service levels, pricing, and branding.eFolder partners create thriving businesses based upon managed services that generate predictable, monthly recurring revenue. Partners are able to keep their operating costs low through reliable service performance, automation, and integration with their PSA systems. And the result is consistent ongoing profitability.
If eFolder sounds right for you, contact us today. Qualifying VARs, solution providers, and MSPs can try any eFolder service at no cost.Thank you for joining us.