By Datto Guest Blog 2

Business Continuity is rapidly becoming an everyday term in the IT channel, as well as businesses of all size. This new category is being defined by the shifting focus from data loss to downtime. I am not trying to play down the significance or consequences of data loss but when comparing current products, businesses are all but guaranteed data loss protection from all of the options. The real comparison comes down to protection from downtime.

Downtime is a broad term for any losses a business incurs when they are not operating due to technological failure. Downtime can compound the effects of data loss, and is especially painful to small businesses that run with limited operating capital.

A great example of thousands of dollars lost due to downtime is when Datto was looking for a new coffee and office goods supplier. Our previous contract ended around the time of Hurricane Sandy and the first business we called said they could not process our order. The company assured us they would process the order when their machines came back up, but we had an immediate need.  So we simply called the next name on list to get what we needed, when we needed it.

Business continuity and competitive edge

That’s the reality of our fast paced society, competition is always present and every deal matters. It wasn’t always like this, in fact ten years ago data loss prevention was not even guaranteed by the technology available. The point is that when running a business you need to have the current technology protecting your assets because you are competing with other businesses that do. So the question comes down to what technology is best fit for businesses future needs?

Datto believes that our technology and products must be the most innovative, secure, and future-ready piece of equipment at your clients’ sites. As the last resort against data loss and protection against any technological failure that would result in a business not being able to run their critical processes and applications, they have to be. The final and very important feature of the Datto device is that you don’t have to change it every time a customer exceeds their storage limit and needs to upgrade.  As the “rock” of the network, we understand that it can be  complex and time consuming to change the solution often. That’s why we’ve made our new devices field upgradeable.

New product lines

We embraced the challenge and are confident we have succeeded in providing the most comprehensive, robust, and secure Business Continuity solutions in the market. In March we released our four new product lines—taking the best of Datto and making it better—we reengineered, redesigned and ultimately rebuilt our solutions from the ground up. We have added hot-swappable bays, solid-state OS drives and the fastest processors to our appliances. Our software is now running a new version of Linux and we built advanced restore and alerting tools to make the product versatile for multiple verticals.

The best part of this product launch? We have not materially raised prices and all of our solutions are sold only through the Channel. With the most powerful line of Business Continuity solutions and even adding a storage product, our line up has put our partners in a very strong position for 2014 and beyond. Has Datto defined the future of business continuity? You bet we did!

Ian McChord is product director at Datto.