It was only a week ago that MSP Today brought you news of Datto ALTO, a hybrid cloud backup and disaster recovery tool (BDR) aimed at small businesses and sold through partners, often MSPs.
This week, ALTO scored the Best New Product Award from the ASCII group at its recent Boston Success Summit.
The 29-year-old ASCII is an organization that serves VARs, integrators and IT solution providers, and has a keen interest in MSPs.
The group actually grew out of a chain of 40 software stores owned by the now-defunct Ashton-Tate, which was once the third largest PC software maker largely on the heels of dBase. The stores, who were having a tough time in the market, created the group to do joint buying and provide services that would help all the stores.
Nearly 30 years later, the essence is much the same. ASCII still helps solution providers purchase more cost effectively from distributors, and offers discounts on items such as insurance, and also provides educational services.
The ALTO award was given by popular vote “to the technology company deemed to have the best new product for the IT industry, is voted on by the event’s attendees who consist of both IT vendors and solution providers focused on the small-to-medium (SMB) market,” the company said.
"I was truly blown away by the channel's response to Datto ALTO at ASCII Boston,” said Austin McChord, founder and CEO of Datto. “It is incredibly exciting to see Partners expressing so much enthusiasm for something we have all worked so hard to bring to the market. This is only just the beginning, we cannot wait to see what Partners do once they get Datto ALTO in their hands."
How ALTO Plays Out
Datto ALTO is really two tools in one, a storage appliance and a service. The appliance is installed on-premises to do a primary back up, which is then backed up again at a Datto data center.
ALTO uses Hybrid Virtualization to speed restoration when needed. “This feature is the combination of instant off-site virtualization and the single-click connectivity of instant local virtualization. A failed system can be spun up easily from the Datto ALTO interface, dramatically reducing downtime. Automatic VPN technology seamlessly connects the virtualization from the user’s local network to Datto’s secure off-site servers. In the event of a local disaster, entire networks can be recreated virtually and connected directly to the cloud,” the company explained.
Backup is critical for small shops, 15 percent of whom do no backup whatsoever, according to IDC.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
