CharTec Launches Enterprise HaaS BDR Appliance for MSPs
CharTec specializes in hardware-as-a-service — so it’s no surprise that when they decided to build their own cloud-enabled enterprise-grade backup and disaster recovery (BDR) appliance, they decided to offer it under a monthly subscription model with no money down. CharTec says it’s designed to make BDR more appealing to the midmarket, where this kind of solution can be expensive and complex to deploy. Here’s the skinny.
The underlying technology, says CharTec CEO Alex Rogers, is to give MSPs a deep level of visibility into the backup chain. The CharTec BDR appliances will perform onsite backups regularly, and push data into the cloud automatically, as you’d expect, but they’ll also perform test virtualizations of backed-up servers overnight and alert the administrator if anything’s wrong – Rogers says it eliminates a lot of unpleasant surprises for MSPs.
And speaking of virtualizations, CharTec BDR enables total network virtualization from the cloud in the event of total site loss, enhancing business continuity. If it’s just one server that goes down, the appliance can virtualize it maximizing uptime. And ten hours of virtualization lab time a month are included with the HaaS subscription to enable technicians to work on servers in the cloud.
Subscriptions start at $149/month (for the basic CharTec BDR 100 appliance) and go to $499/month (for the 18GB of RAM, five 1.5 terabyte hard drive-packing BDR 500). And, Rogers says, since CharTec sees BDR as a great “foot-in-the-door” offering for managed services providers, you don’t even have to enroll in their reseller program to offer it to customers at channel rates.
Competitive Market
Of course, CharTec isn’t alone in the BDR market. Zenith Infotech, for one, is well-known within the managed services market for its BDR solutions. And Hewlett-Packard now bundles Level Platforms‘ remote monitoring and management software on a storage appliance.
The competitive landscape also is evolving. You may recall that ConnectWise Capital invested in CharTec and LabTech Software in early 2010. Fast forward to the present, and LabTech seems to be targeting competitive opportunities against Kaseya. And if CharTec’s BDR solution works as advertised, it could wind up competing against Zenith Infotech.
Additional reporting by Joe Panettieri. Sign up for MSPmentor’s weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS, Facebook, Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.
I have Zenith, is Chartec a better implementation?
Any benchmarks?
We have implemented 3 BDR’s so far with CharTec. The first one was challenging only becuase I tried to skip the step by step instructions. ( I guess thats the tech in me ) I called the guys down at CharTec, had somone on the phone in 2 minutes. Wam Bam Easy as Pie. I was a Zenith Client for the last couple of years and really didnt have too many issues except on virtualization and dealing with their people. I do like the fact that CharTec box’s are Servers that perform well when virualized. I had to keep a 30 user network up for 5 days in virtual mode on the CharTec BDR and the Clients didnt even know! So im a believer. I will be installing a CharTec Server here next week i am expecting the same performance. Oh yea the other nice thing is i didnt have to pay for 12 months in advance. That helped the old Check book!
vic@1: Can you disclose who you are? MSP or VAR? Zenith rival? Someone else?
Jim@2: Thanks for the background. Can you give us any background on your company? Where based and market focus?
We ask for the deeper background so that readers can reach more informed conclusions about comments posted on our blogs. Thanks.
-jp