Today’s digital-first business environment puts effective data management front and centre of the organisational strategy. And while the principles of backup and recovery still hold true, these have evolved to now encompass borderless visibility and on-demand access to all your data regardless of where it is stored, all managed through a single application with no hardware required.
Redstor examines some of the considerations around choosing the right approach for the business.
Helping hand
The best partner is one that takes great technology and delivers it in a way that makes sense for the company. Of course, the solution is important. But more than that, it is someone willing to get ‘in the fight’ with the business and make resources available that they typically do not have in-house. As the name suggests, it is a partnership to help ensure the success of the solution environment and having it deliver on the organisational priorities.
Sales dedication
It all begins by the sales effort of the potential partner. Putting in place the likes of a personal account manager and sales specialist contribute to the successful scoping and quoting of a product. Having things like pre-sales, demonstrations, and trial support in place can significantly empower the company to experiment and see the potential of the backup and recovery solution before migrating. As part of this, local partners also deliver the added benefit of billing in South African Rands. This reduces the potential for bill shock and mitigates the risk currency fluctuations can have on monthly costs.
Ease of change
One of the concerns many companies have in embracing a new backup and recovery environment is the complexities associated with change. A trusted partner can eliminate those and provide the support essential to migrate data from the incumbent platform to a more agile one. Having the option of a flexible first bill date can also be significant as it allows the partner to onboard the company while building the retention period required by the SLA.
Ease of solutions
Even if all the above fall in place, it must be enhanced with user-friendly solutions that just work. Today, attention must be on backup and recovery environments that are more accessible to business users than the ‘techie’-heavy solutions of old.
Support throughout
Extending the ease of use is the ability to call on technical account management and ongoing support when needed. A local partner means this can happen at a much more personal level than relying on an international vendor with a focus spread across multiple continents. It is even better if the local partner has a strong relationship with a global solutions provider delivering the best of both worlds.
Compliance
Critical to any backup and recovery solution is adherence to compliance requirements. In South Africa, regulation like POPIA and others mean the focus must be on safeguarding data as best as possible. A local partner that delivers local presence in geographically redundant data centres bring with it the flexibility and scalability required as well as the peace of mind that the right data is kept within the borders of the country.
Ensuring recovery
Ultimately, the environment must deliver on its promise. Having the best recovery times possible is key. And then, companies need to have access to data instantly as a streaming service instead of having to download files. Archiving functionality must also be a given. Those partners who set themselves apart from the rest are those who provide this at no additional cost.