Responding to Disasters Quickly and Effectively is a Noble Goal for MSPs

Thanks to digital transformation, cybersecurity is now at the forefront of virtually every enterprise's priority list, regardless of size, industry, or business. With innovative devices and applications breeding a new wave of faster, more sophisticated cybercriminals, enterprises are being as cautious as ever, adopting a variety of cybersecurity solutions in hopes of thwarting all would-be attackers.

The rise in cybersecurity demand has triggered rapid growth in the industry, with the global Cyber Security Market Size valued at $139.77 billion in 2021 and projected to reach $376.32 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 13.4 percent.

Apart from leveraging cybersecurity solutions, enterprises are also increasingly looking to managed service providers (MSPs) to reach their desired levels of security. MSP consulting services usually include a full range of proactive managed IT services that focus on advanced cybersecurity, such as around-the-clock monitoring, data encryption, backup, real-time threat prevention and elimination, network and firewall protection, security awareness training, and more.

MSPs are quickly becoming common partners for enterprises looking to bolster their cybersecurity, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). According to a Tech Tribe survey, eight out of 10 SMEs surveyed are working with an MSP, and four of them want to keep working with their current security partners. Of the SMEs that aren't partnering with an MSP, 12 percent plan to partner with one in the next 12 months.

Cybersecurity Awareness month, an annual initiative started by the U.S. Federal Government agencies in 2004, marks a good time for MSPs to check in on some of the more overlooked parts of cybersecurity defense.

Many organizations want their MSPs to be focused on stopping cyberattacks before they happen, which is, of course, a smart approach. Yet, many businesses will focus solely on proactive defense and forget a disaster recovery plan.

While no one ever wants to think about being breached or hacked, with more than 500,000 new malware samples found every day, the question for MSPs isn't if their clients will be targeted, but when. Even knowing it's only a matter of time, disaster recovery is still challenging for MSPs to understand and address. Defining recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) and putting processes in place to achieve these objectives can be daunting.

Nonetheless, a disaster recovery plan is essential for MSPs to have ready, as it allows the MSP to minimize the damage that those incidents create for customers and for MSPs themselves. This is on top of MSPs being able to quickly recover data following any incident and avoid long-lasting business interruptions, as well as preventing loss of data, which can have a serious financial impact and result in loss of customer confidence, damaging a company's reputation.

As MSPs become more crucial to SMEs and larger enterprises, they have increasingly begun searching for disaster recovery solutions they can add to their repertoire for their own and clients' benefit.
 

Axcient, a comprehensive data protection company for MSPs, recently introduced Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) enhancements and expanded reporting capabilities for MSPs, including dashboard visibility into backup health.

"Our focus is on MSP success, including investing in R&D to improve the partner experience," said Adam Preeo, VP of Product at Axcient. "We are constantly making technology enhancements based on partner input and need. The new reporting capabilities offer more visibility for partners and their clients, enabling them to ensure consistent data protection and faster recoveries when needed."

The new enhancements include a variety of advantages for MSPs to leverage when it comes to disaster recovery. For example, the Cloud Health Digest Report provides partners daily summaries of their clients' backup health and compliance with Service Level Agreements, uncovering unprotected systems and any potential risks for data loss. MSPs can white-label the health digest report and send it to their clients via email with their own branding to demonstrate the essential value of data protection.

Axcient's Backup History Report provides up to two years of detailed backup history, helping clients better understand usage patterns and optimize their backup administration. The reporting tool can generate a custom report emailed to clients daily, weekly, or monthly to improve their operations and provide confidence in their disaster recovery program.

In addition to these new reports, Axcient now offers backup health data in the x360 Portal "Dashboard" tab. With the backup health view, MSPs get quick access to key health metrics to aid in data-based decision-making. The insights include:

• Current Client Health: The percentage of clients that are compliant with service-level agreements (SLAs);
• 6-Month Counts: The number of protected systems by type – including appliances, vaults, servers, and workstations – over six months;
• 7-Day Protected System Health History: The percentage of healthy protected systems over seven days; and
• Organization At A Glance: An overview of clients – including unprotected clients that require action – users, vaults, appliances, protected systems (aka devices), and virtual machines running.

"Axcient's BCDR solutions allow MSPs to bring even more insight and value to our clients," said Robert Cioffi, COO & Co-Founder at Progressive Computing. "With these new enhancements, Axcient helps me better protect client data and optimize my own organization so we are more effective and efficient. Axcient continues to raise the bar for what MSPs should expect from their BCDR vendor."

"With technological innovations only set to continue, driving society deeper into the digital age, the number of opportunities for cyberattacks is set to grow concurrently," said Ryan Walsh, COO at Pax8, one of the world's fastest-growing marketplaces for MSPs, which offers Axcient's solutions. "Along with the other aspects of cybersecurity, having an adequate disaster recovery plan in place will become ever more essential for MSPs to offer. Axcient's BCDR is another important way MSPs can bolster their cybersecurity offerings for their clients, with advanced assurance in case of minor or major events."