Managed services software vendor Continuum has introduced a new entry-level BDR solution and an updated version of its Total Desktop Care Plus offering.
Both products debuted this week at Navigate, Boston-based Continuum’s annual partner event, which is currently underway in Las Vegas.
The new BDR system, called Continuity247 Backup, is a stripped-down version of Continuum’s more expansive flagship data protection solution that doesn’t support local virtualization of unavailable endpoints or full site virtualization. Unlike the full-scale product, moreover, the new one utilizes commodity hardware from third-party OEMs typically priced around $500 rather than Continuum’s own custom-manufactured appliance, which costs $1,200 to $1,500.
“Not all customers have the need to pay for that, or the willingness or the ability to pay for it,” says Fielder Hiss, Continuum’s vice president of product. Continuity247 Backup, he continues, enables MSPs to deliver data protection services to such customers at a TCO 60 to 70 percent lower than the legacy Continuity247 offering.
Businesses that wish to can virtualize endpoints in the cloud, Hiss notes, and store full site images in low cost repositories like the Archive for Continuity247 product that Continuum introduced in June. That product is optimized for use with Amazon Glacier, a cloud storage offering from Amazon Web Services that sells disk capacity for fractions of a penny per gigabyte.
Hardware used with the system must meet minimum requirements spelled out by Continuum. Those specs vary based on the size of the endpoints being protected. Customers can purchase backup servers from the supplier of their choice, though pre-assembled configurations are available from RackApps, a hardware supplier based in Fremont, Calif.
Continuity247 comes with outsourced management services via Continuum’s network operations center, just like other Continuity247 versions, and can be administered centrally via Continuum’s RMM solution.
“This will allow you to cover a broader spectrum of your customers with a single solution and a single point of view and a single dashboard,” Hiss says.
The new edition of Total Desktop Care Plus unveiled today features a modernized interface designed to enhance usability as well as “sequencing controls” that let MSPs define and execute step-by-step workflows. Technicians can create a software deployment sequence, for example, that installs the application, downloads the latest service pack, and then reboots the target endpoint.
“Typically, that’s three things for a technician to do. We’ll make it one thing,” Hiss states. “They can truly do end-to-end automation.”
The new Total Desktop Care Plus release also includes grouping functionality that lets MSPs apply tasks against multiple endpoints at once based on what OS they’re running, where they’re located, and other variables. According to Hiss, that and the other new capabilities in the product combine to deliver increased technician productivity.
“We’re seeing significant time savings in their day-to-day activities managing desktops,” he says.
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