Acronis aims to give value-added resellers (VARs) and managed service providers (MSPs) a localised and customisable opex-based backup product with the launch of its Backup-as-a-Service solution in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ).
Backup-as-a-Service – first launched in the US and Europe in June – is based on the software vendor’s AnyData Engine, and represents more a new delivery model than technology, according to Acronis global Cloud general manager, René Oldenbeuving.
“Our Backup-as-a-Service solution is a portal,” he told ARN. “We provide a login for partners, they get their own environment which no one else can access, and they can create their own customers in that environment and activate all our technology used for both physical and virtual environments for data protection.”
He said the service is designed to conform to the shift in focus from on-premises to Cloud deployments, therefore giving partners the ability to go to market with a product which can replace up-front capital expenditure (capex) investments with a payer-per-use backup model.
While it takes two to three years to build up volume that is comparable to the immediate earnings of a capital expenditure (capex) approach, it allows quicker growth, and pending retention, promises sustainable revenue.
Acronis international operations president, Laurent Dedenis, claims because very few traditional software vendors have a backup-as-a-service offering, the company will be positioned at the forefront of demand.
VARs and MSPs working with Backup-as-a-Service can resell the solution as is, or white-label or co-brand it into existing software-as-a-service (SaaS) portfolios. Acronis claims this flexibility permits partners to designate various departments and roles involved with installing, activating, monitoring and backup up of data to the Cloud and local storage destinations.
By default, customers will be serviced from Acronis’ Singapore datacentre with IBM SoftLayer, which will be made available this week. Resellers working on global agreements can alternatively opt for the vendor’s US or European datacentres.
Backup-as-a-Service can also be based on non-Acronis Cloud storage within its competitors' colocations.
