Master MSP CharTec Launches New BDR Product
By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor
When Business Solutions conducts its annual Best (& Worst) Channel Vendors survey, we often read comments from VARs and MSPs who seem resigned to having to deal with vendor or products with which they are dissatisfied. Sort of a "what can you do?" attitude.
Well, one master MSP has decided that isn't good enough. Today, CharTec, which has made its mark as a branch of MSP ARRC Technology by offering hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) to peers, announces it has jumped into a new space — backup and disaster recovery. The reason? It was exasperated with its BDR product's performance. "On our MSP side, ARRC Technology, we have seen so many BDR failures, and then on the CharTec side, we were hearing the same complaints," explains Alex Rogers, CEO of CharTec. "We tried vetting other solutions, but in October we realized: Why we didn't just build what we wanted instead of settling on another solution that was sort of what we wanted."
Among the problems CharTec hoped to resolve, removing the need to invest in a BDR appliance, unreliable tech support, failed virtualizations during the recovery process, and weak hardware. "You know, when you promise a client managed services, and you don't meet your SLA for some reason, you get a slap on the hand," explains Rogers. "But when your customer's server goes down, or something dramatic happens and you can't get their data back and you BDR solution fails, then you lose customers."
The new CharTec BDR offering will stay true to the company's roots. It is a HaaS solution — no money upfront, no payments, no hardware to invest in. The solution is built with Intel-based server hardware, includes remote monitoring and management (RMM) agents that run virtualization fire drills every night, offers automatic validation of the backup transfer chain, and leverages the power of the cloud to offer even more reliable recovery. The product is also built to interact with professional services automation (PSA) tools such as ConnectWise and Autotask; a full integration with ConnectWise is expected later this year.
While CharTec HaaS offerings require an upfront fee; partners "join" CharTec, this product is available to the public. "Anyone can purchase this BDR product, but CharTec partners will have them private labeled," explains Rogers. "Our goal is that these new partners will see how nice it is to have a HaaS partner, then they will join us." In addition to offering the product, CharTec will roll out training to teach its managed services partners how to integrate the BDR solution with their existing managed services offerings.