Washington – The recently concluded Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is a good place for partnerships to be born. Most of these partnerships happen with Microsoft. However, networking vendor NetGear and backup and recovery vendor StorageCraft broke the mold at the 2014 somewhat by partnering with each other.
StorageCraft and NetGear announced at the Washington event ReadyRecover, a new addition to the flagship ReadyData unified storage SAN/NAS platform.
ReadyRecover is a backup appliance creates full backups of servers, desktops and laptops on 15 minute intervals. ReadyRecover is able to restore files, entire folders, databases or system files from physical locations on virtual machines.
Both companies are aiming this solution to small-mid-size businesses that run periodic full system backups.
According to Matt Pahnke, senior product marketing manager, storage for NetGear, based in San Jose, Calif., ReadyRecover enables businesses to backup data freely without the need to develop periodic full system backups.
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“With ReadyNAS and ReadyData it was natural to include backup software. The resellers in our network would always ask us for recommendations for an all-in-one solution. We looked around and saw StorageCraft and within six months we were working on a backup and recovery appliance together,” Pahnke said.
He added that what the two companies did was take StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect technology and engineered it to make it better than the sum of two parts so that customers and solution providers can eliminate the need for full backup after the first backup is set because it only writes the changed data. This feature also saves in processing power costs.
“Costs are tricky and there are a lot of soft costs even with plug and play products to get to that enterprise type storage,” said Bret Bayley, marketing alliance director for StorageCraft, based in Draper, Utah.
For the channel, Bayley said that StorageCraft is focused on the SMB segment and the higher end of the mid-market and this hits the channel’s sweet spot very well. “For solution providers simplicity is key because it makes them profitable. The easier it is to install and configure they better it is for them. The ReadyData platform integrates files and systems like a full backup,’” he said.
The business opportunity for the channel partners with NetGear and StorageCraft is that the two vendors have some common channel partners, but are looking to make that overlap greater. NetGear and StorageCraft channel partners typically are managed service providers or break-fix VARs that service SMBs.
“We are looking to expand that and cross over with the channel teams and see where the opportunity for both NetGear and StorageCraft is,” Pahnke said.
“We go through distribution and look at MSPs as part of the overall solution. Breaking out margin is difficult. We have a lot of partners who mark us up at least 10 per cent and that is on the low end. We coach our partners to sell on value and not on price because if you sell on price you will lose on price,” Pahnke added.