Watch Your Backup, Literally
Early September Datto held its very first partner conference in Washington, DC with over 250 Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Resellers and various industry vendors in attendance. The topic of CEO Austin McChord’s Keynote was growth and innovation.
The Datto team delivered on its promise of innovation with a new proprietary technology available with Datto SIRIS and Datto SIRIS Lite called “Backup Insights.” Excited solution providers got to demo and use the feature at the conference. Not only was Backup Insights offered to partners at the show, it was also released during Austin’s Keynote to every partner in North America. Backup Insights was just one piece of a four feature release that went down as the largest enhancement package ever added to Datto’s award-winning business continuity solution; other features were a brand new interface, local encryption and unlimited cloud retention.
Backup Insights
The big question is “What does Backup Insights do for Datto Partners?” The feature is remarkably simple to understand but infinitely technical in how it works. When thinking about image-based backups I like to compare it to a Polaroid picture. When a Polaroid is first taken the paper is dark with no visible features, but with time and some shaking the picture becomes clear.
Until September of this year no image-based backup provider, let alone backup providers based on archaic technologies, have been able to shake the picture or backup to see the components without opening a restore or virtualizing it. By being able to dissect a backup, Datto Partners can derive information about what was on the protected machine at the time of backup. That alone is not ground breaking, but Datto took it one step further and added the ability to compare backup points. This means a user can actually see what files have been created, modified or deleted between two points in time.
Visibility into Change
The use cases of this feature are practically limitless and open up new ways for Datto Partners to build value in their business continuity service without a disaster. Imagine the scenario of an employee accidentally deleting an important file but they don’t know the location of the file or even its name. Using the smallest amount of information a provider can be a hero and restore the lost file easily and most importantly, quickly. Maybe an employee installed a virus on their machine or a critical server. The Datto Partner can now simply track back to the last backup point before installation and do a full system restore. Providers can now see trends in data across time to identify abnormalities, which could signal or foreshadow a potentially disastrous situation.
The best part of this feature is that we are just scratching the surface of the value this technology can really hold. Founder and CEO Austin McChord also noted in his Keynote that Datto fully plans on adding additional features to Backup Insights, to drive more functionality from the tool. Some of those innovations include increased alerting when files or applications grow beyond a certain percentage as well as reports and summaries around files, data, activity and history for workstations or servers.
The Innovation Brainstorm
Datto Partners are always invited to join the innovation brainstorm and give input on features or functionality they would like to see in the future. The best part of working in the Channel is that we truly act as a team; input from our Partners helps us build better products and services. Backup Insights and all the product innovations delivered to Datto Partners during the conference were added completely free of charge and available on every SIRIS and SIRIS Lite.
Datto is focused on delivering its Partners added value to the solutions they buy today, in the future or have bought in the past. The fact that Datto is channel only and technology driven adds a natural incentive for us to continually improve products and better serve our Partners.
Reach out to the Datto team to schedule a demo.
Ian McChord is Product Manager at Datto.