Managed Service Provider Week in Review

It was a week of partnerships in the managed service provider (MSP) world, with service providers beefing up their channel relationships and announcing new and innovative strategies to bring their services to market.

Cloud backup and recovery services for MSPs are the result of a new partnership between STORServer and Front-safe. Services are to be delivered through public, private and hybrid clouds, and the solution is installed at the data center of certified MSP partners. The new offering is comprised of STORServer's MSP Backup Appliance and Front-safe's portal software for managing and charging incoming customers.

MSP Cartika, a provider of virtual private server (VPS) services, has partnered with OnApp, the companies announced this week. The MSP is building new VPS services using the OnApp Cloud Platform, and will host offerings in the U.S. and Canada. VPS services basically act as a higher level VM that is separate from other VMs and acts as its own unique computer, assigned to a specific customer.

Kaseya, a provider of systems management via MSPs, has added an upgraded Symantec plug-in to more tightly integrate its offerings with Symantec Backup Exec. The Symantec Backup Exec Management Plug-in 1.1 for Kaseya enables MSPs to use the Kaseya console to monitor backups remotely. They may also receive alerts, check statuses and monitor how backup tasks are progressing, all from Kaseya's Virtual System Administrator console.

Axxera and SISAP also announced a new partnership to help bring managed security services to the Central American market. Information security provider SISAP launched its Managed Security Services offering in Guatemala City to kick off the new initiative. The Axxera Central Intelligence Platform is being used to power the new services, which offer MSPs cost efficient and scalable management of security services.

Technology Associates is now using the OpenDNS Umbrella tool to help protect customer networks. The cloud-based offering defends networks against phishing, botnets and other forms of malware. It is device and location agnostic, and is supported by a network of 19 data centers and used by thousands of MSP partners.