BUSINESS CONTINUITY: The MSP’s Guide to Backup and Disaster Recovery

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Business Continuity: The MSP’s Guide to Backup and Disaster Recoveryby Zeshan Raja and Randy Bowie.

www.continuum.net

© 2016 Continuum Managed Services

Notice of RightsAll Rights Reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permissionfrom the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For information and permissions please contact: Brandon.Garcin@continuum.net or Mary.McCoy@continuum.net

Continuum Managed Services31st Floor, Keystone Building, 99 High Street, Boston MA 02110

Written ByZeshan Raja, Assistant Director, Partner Success, Continuum Managed Services

Randy Bowie, VP, Backup Products & Engineering,Continuum Managed Services

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FOREWORD

CHAPTER 1:

CHAPTER 2:

CHAPTER 3:

CHAPTER 4:

Table of ContentsAn Introduction from Michael George , CEO, Continuum Managed Services

Defining Backup and Disaster Recovery

The Evolution of Data Backup and Disaster Recovery

Developing and Marketing a Compelling BDR Offering

Continuity247® and the Power of Fully-Managed BDR

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5

11

17

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The current and future SMB market requirements for effective data backup, redundancy and recoverability are well understood. The Web has given rise to a new era of 24x7 computing, and the speed of business facilitated by the “born-in-the-cloud” workforce demands always-on access to business services, applications and information. Contemporary IT environments are redefined by the completely digitally-integrated workplace, and are no longer constrained by physical attributes. This paradigm shift has created rapidly-expanding, highly-lucrative opportunities for managed IT services providers (MSPs) to transform their businesses by evolving beyond traditional hardware-defined, offsite backup solutions to offer software-defined, cloud-based business continuity and disaster recovery services.

We’ve written this eBook to help successful service providers trace the evolution of data backup and business continuity technologies, and to illustrate the important considerations and requirements that should be focused on when developing modern backup and disaster recovery (BDR) offerings. This book also showcases how Continuum’s Continuity247® platform enables providers to embrace and capitalize on the era of cloud business continuity by delivering market leading backup and data protection services to their clients.

At Continuum, it’s our solemn commitment and humble privilege to contribute to the success of the IT channel through continuous innovation and education. We hope this book serves as a valuable asset to your business as you seek to further expand your opportunities in the backup and disaster recovery market.

To your continued success,

Foreword

Michael George, CEO, Continuum Managed ServicesAugust 2016

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TOPICS YOU’LL COVER:

Chapter OneDefining Backupand Disaster RecoveryThe Importance of Data in Business Today

Types of Incidents and Disasters BDR Protects Against

The BDR Opportunity for MSPs

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mall-and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) today rely on data and information in their daily operations. Hospitals, law firms,

banks, schools, retail outlets and everything in between—all of these businesses depend on electronically-stored information, and each has its own requirements around storage, backup and recoverability. What’s more, the risks and consequences associated with data loss can be severe; hospitals cannot afford to lose patient data, retailers suffer when their shipping or receiving database is compromised, and the list goes on. Even a relatively small problem like the inability to access email or a short period of website downtime can create serious headaches for businesses.

And although businesses are able to purchase backup software off the shelf, in-house management of these systems can be complicated and time-consuming; many organizations lack the technical support, infrastructure or other capabilities needed to support true business continuity planning. For this reason, SMBs often choose to work with a third-party provider to support their BDR needs. Outsourced BDR services represent a combination of data storage and continuity

solutions that are managed and maintained by an outside partner. They work together to ensure critical information and records are secure, protected and accessible in the event of any unplanned downtime or data loss incident. The goal of these offerings is to enable organizations to resume normal business operations as quickly as possible while minimizing the impact or damage associated with such an event.

To appreciate the value brought by a third-party BDR provider, businesses should consider the growing list of software, support, planning and resources required to support an effective business continuity plan and whether they have the means to purchase and maintain them.

Data must not only be copied or replicated and stored at an offsite location, but the right recovery mechanisms must be in place to ensure that data can actually be accessed when needed. These include servers, software, storage capacity, virtualization technology and more. These can get expensive, and even if the right environment is in place businesses must also have people, processes and plans to ensure recovery can happen as quickly as needed.

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It’s also worth noting that backup software, like any other system, can fail. This is especially true in the case of software that isn’t designed for true disaster recovery, like basic file sharing solutions or Web-based drives; putting faith in these to support business continuity planning can leave SMBs in trouble if they don’t function properly.

For any business that you serve today, it’s important to back up data with recovery in mind. Assume that you’ll someday need to actually utilize the systems you’ve put in place, and don’t cut corners hoping things will work themselves out.

For instance, take a business that backs up data from different servers and applications by striping to a series of tapes that are then stored offsite. Their main concern is backing up data as quickly as possible, but because various data segments are stored in separate tapes, a single failure or corruption can break the entire recovery chain. Users must also know which data lives where in order to piece together the puzzle created by this method of backup to successfully reconstruct required information. Rather than focusing solely

on backup speeds, however, this business should invest in technology that optimizes the recovery process—even if that means daily backups will take a few minutes longer.

For MSPs that can help businesses alleviate these pressures and avoid such complications, the BDR market is a lucrative one; according to a 2015 MarketsandMarkets report, the Disaster Recovery as a Service market is expected to grow to $11.92 billion by 2021, at an estimated Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 45.9 percent. SMBs that appreciate the need for effective data protection are willing to pay for it, and providers with existing access to infrastructure, technical, data center and cloud resources stand to yield some impressive margins and return on BDR contracts. For MSPs who are not currently offering some form of business continuity or disaster recovery, now is the perfect time to take advantage of this opportunity.

According to a 2015 MarketsandMarkets report, the DisasterRecovery as a Service market will be worth$11.92 billion by 2021. Tweet This!

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There’s no way to predict the future, and Murphy’s Law tells us that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. In business continuity planning, taking a few minutes on a Friday afternoon to back up some important files to a USB drive simply doesn’t cut it; the risks and potential for data loss today are too great, and disaster recovery solutions need to account for much more than a single failed hard drive or corrupt file. Here are some of the scenarios where BDR proves to be most helpful:

Natural Disasters and Extreme WeatherLikely the first thoughts in most of our minds when thinking about “disaster” are those caused by Mother Nature—hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and other events that can cause significant structural damage and substantially impact businesses. For SMBs in geographic areas which are regularly affected by these events, the need for off-site backup and business continuity planning is obvious; a 2013 study, “Climate Change Preparedness and the Small Business

Sector,” claims that small businesses lose an average of $3,000 per day after closing due to a major storm, and the regularity of these events in certain locations makes the decision to purchase BDR a no-brainer.

Even in cases where infrastructure damage is minimal, things like power outages, small leaks and less severe issues can still create significant downtime for businesses while repairs are being made—all of which can stop daily operations in their tracks, impeding sales and employee productivity and costing the business significantly.

It’s important to remember, however, that these natural disasters account for only a small percentage of downtime (as little as five percent, according to a 2013 disaster recovery report released by Quorum). Backup technology offers protection against much more than weather alone.

Types of Incidents and Disasters BDR Protects Against

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Hardware FailureSimply put, hardware fails. Different hard drives, servers, desktops and other devices have varying life expectancies and refresh cycles, but now and again things simply break down. Whether it’s due to normal wear and tear, defects or the unexplainable, businesses need to be prepared. BDR can help ensure that entire datasets and all of the information stored on these devices are replicated and accessible should something suddenly stop working.

File Corruption and Software Failure Hardware failure aside, software will also occasionally trip up and cause problems. Files and data can become corrupted, things may be deleted without warning and that important presentation or Excel spreadsheet may suddenly no longer exist an hour before the big budget meeting. In addition to providing complete restores for entire machines, BDR allows for the recovery of individual files and folders.

User Error We all make mistakes, and sometimes users will accidentally click a malicious link, drop their computer, misplace a mobile device or delete

something they intended to save. These slip-ups happen more often than you’d think, and in fact user error was cited as the leading cause of data loss in a 2015 Databarracks survey. Backup plays an important role in ensuring these mistakes don’t turn into serious problems, and MSPs can provide education, expertise and a smart security framework for their customers to help prevent these problems before they happen.

Insider Threats In addition to negligent or accidental behavior, there’s also the threat of intentional misuse, theft or deletion of important data. If a disgruntled employee encrypts, deletes, steals or corrupts sensitive information, having a complete backup of that data as a failsafe ensures that it can be recovered and restored. This isn’t to say that BDR can necessarily prevent such behavior, but it helps to have the added cushion in place just to be safe.

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Cybercrime Viruses, malware and cybercrime are increasingly dangerous threats. The Ponemon Institute’s “2015 Cost of Cyber Crime Report” claims that businesses saw an average of 160 successful cyber attacks per week, more than three times the 2010 average. And in the case of advanced ransomware attacks, which lock user data and demand payment in order to restore infected files, BDR can help save some SMBs from suffering business-crippling costs that can shut down their businesses for good.

Despite these risks, the need for modern BDR technology isn’t always obvious among SMBs—particularly those who are used to leveraging more traditional backup technologies and haven’t spent much time focusing on actual disaster recovery or continuity planning. In these cases, service providers should be equipped to educate potential customers on the history and evolution of data backup technology to explain why yesterday’s solutions and approaches aren’t up to par with today’s retention and recoverability standards, or tomorrow’s threats.

The Ponemon Institute’s “2015 Cost of Cyber Crime Report” claims that businesses saw an average of 160 successful cyber attacks per week, more than three times the 2010 average.

2010 2015

x3

Number of Cyber Attacks

Per Week

Years

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TOPICS YOU’LL COVER:

Chapter TwoThe Evolution of Data Backup and Disaster RecoveryA Timeline Exploring the History of Data Backup Technology

The Emergence of Cloud Computing

Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid Clouds

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The need to capture and record data, information and processes is hardly a new concept. The origins of data backup can be traced back as early as the 18th century, when the “technology” was in the form of paper tapes built using punch cards to control the functions of automated machinery such as textile looms. Years later, the idea was further developed by IBM in the early days of data processing, where data input, storage and commands were captured using a series of hole punches on paper cards.

In 1956, IBM introduced the 350 disk storage unit—the first ever hard disk drive. It was 60 inches long, stood nearly 70 inches tall and had a capacity of five million six-bit characters – or 3.75 MB of data. And although less than four megabytes may not seem like much (a decent cell phone can today take a picture with a larger file size), the 350 disk storage unit represents a more modern concept of storage and data backup that over time has become a critical element of business continuity planning and strategy.

(Sources: http://www.backuphistory.com, http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/05/historyback-ups/)

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Over the course of the next 10 to 15 years, two backup formats became the industry standard for archiving and offsite storage—tape and disk. Similar in functionality, both tape- and disk-based backups are designed to replicate data and ensure recoverability in the event of a hardware failure or data-loss event.

Both have their advantages and drawbacks; tape is very affordable and offers high-capacity storage; however magnetic tapes themselves are fragile and must be maintained properly to avoid dust and other elements which can cause damage. For this reason, tapes are often stored at an offsite facility—and depending on where that facility is located, it can take some time to physically recover the tapes needed to restore any lost data. On the other hand, disk backup offers a faster recovery process and can often be maintained in-house. Features like deduplication help improve storage and capacity utilization. Disk technology is more expensive than tape, however, and things can become complicated for organizations that require additional redundancy or offsite replication.

And while neither of these technologies is considered obsolete, the cloud has emerged as a third backup methodology and is creating quite a disruption throughout the industry today. Effective backup today encompasses far more than simply creating an extra copy of your most important files for redundancy in case something is lost or corrupt. With daily dependence on the Web and interconnected devices, businesses demand always-on, 24x7x365 computing and simply cannot afford to risk losing data. It’s in this regard that cloud computing is changing the way organizations think about business continuity.

Cloud computing is changing the way organizations think about business continuity.

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Cloud-Based Backup and Disaster RecoveryThe cloud allows for remote access and storage of data and applications using Web-based resources, rather than requiring physical appliances or redundancy mediums like tape or disk. The concept of cloud computing and software-as-a-service applies to a growing variety of IT-related services today: application delivery, remote access technology, email, e-commerce, hosting and more. There are a number of benefits that the cloud can offer to businesses, particularly in the SMB space.

Cost SavingsThe cloud offers small businesses an unprecedented opportunity to tap into resources that were once restricted to large enterprise organizations. With regard to backup, working with an MSP who utilizes cloud-based storage can help SMBs drastically reduce the cost of data replication, offsite storage, etc.

Elasticity One of the biggest benefits offered by cloud computing is its inherent scalability; because

resources are consumed virtually rather than physically, things like storage capacity, backups and licenses can be added or removed with the click of a mouse. The cloud allows MSPs to pay for only those resources that they are consuming, which offers tremendous cost savings. As a result, you can plan for capacity in near-real time, rather than having to purchase hardware with enough storage to last several years.

Security Despite the occasional scary headline about about cloud data breaches and information leaks, the cloud actually offers far greater security than the average SMB can maintain in-house. With the right processes and fail-safes in place, critical data that’s pushed to the cloud can remain protected and safe from many cyber attacks and attempts at theft. This is increasingly important today considering that small businesses are often seen as “easy targets” as they traditionally have not had access to the security technologies employed by enterprise organizations.

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With regard to backup and business continuity, it’s the ability to provide continuous uptime where the cloud really shines. Consumers and businesses alike have grown to expect constant, uninterrupted access to software, services and customer support across nearly all industries today. If a server crashes and an e-commerce website goes offline for a few hours, the associated costs and damaged reputation can force a business to go under. And if transactional records are lost, or shipping data is compromised and deliveries can’t make it to their destination, customer service and satisfaction suffers.

Modern business continuity is all about ensuring that in the case of a hardware failure, data corruption or even a natural disaster, business operations can continue as though nothing had happened while recovery teams work to assess the damage and resolve whatever problem is occurring behind the scenes.

Effective continuity planning requires far more preparedness than traditional backup, and a more thoughtful approach than simply saying,

“We’ll call our backup vendor and they’ll take care of it.” A good offsite backup provider will be able to handle physical data recovery, server virtualization and other technical functions, but continuity planning also requires an organizational plan that ensures all employees are informed of the situation, key stakeholders understand their roles and responsibilities during and immediately following a data-loss incident, and that any service level agreements are aligned with your recovery strategy to avoid any contractual or legal disputes with customers.

Cloud computing and the ability to replicate data offsite have been absolute game-changers in the backup and disaster recovery market, and as the cloud becomes increasingly accessible—and more affordable—small businesses are able to tap into a growing list of benefits that were traditionally only available to larger organzations.

Next, we’ll look at the three primary cloud types that are available today as they relate to continuity planning.

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Public Cloud In a public cloud, you’re purchasing storage capacity and resources from a third-party provider who’s maintaining the facilities, hardware and infrastructure where data actually resides. Think of it as renting a storage unit in a secure facility, or tapping into the electric grid that powers your home—resources are being shared, but you have a piece of the pie that’s dedicated to your particular needs and can scale up or down as needed. An important note about public clouds: since you’re not managing them yourself, it’s important to exercise due diligence to ensure that stability, accessibility and security requirements are all up to par before any data is uploaded.

Private CloudConversely, a private cloud is entirely self-contained; storage capacity isn’t shared with other organizations, and hardware and infrastructure are owned and maintained by whoever owns the cloud itself. Rather than renting a storage unit or tapping into an electric grid, a private cloud is more akin to owning the storage facility itself or using a standalone generator for power. Though often more expensive, private clouds can be an attractive

option for MSPs who already possess the necessary hardware or who have highly-unique storage, compliance or regulatory needs that can’t easily be met by a public cloud provider.

Hybrid Cloud As the name suggests, a hybrid cloud lives somewhere between its private and public counterparts. By leveraging a combination of on-premise, private cloud and public third-party services, with some level of connectivity and synchronization between them, hybrid deployments allow organizations to migrate data back and forth between private and public resources to respond to spikes in demand, evolving business requirements or fluctuating costs.

There is unique value and opportunity in each of these varieties of cloud, and no one-size-fits-all solution that’s right or wrong—businesses should carefully weigh the pros and cons of each before making a cloud investment. This is particularly true for small businesses, who may be able to see the value and the benefits presented by the cloud and business continuity but aren’t sure how best to tap into it; this is where the expertise of an MSP can help.

Continuum has partnered with IBM’s Cloud Infrastructure to power our Continuity247®

platform. SoftLayer is a world-renowned, reliable public cloud that offers scalable, high-performance hosting

backed by a trusted brand, global data center presence, secure infrastructure and reliable,

compliant technology.

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TOPICS YOU’LL COVER:

Chapter ThreeDeveloping and Marketing a Compelling BDR OfferingIdentifying Your Target Customer

Creating and Executing a Go-To-Market Strategy

Generating Qualified Sales Leads

Bundling Value--Added Service into Your Offering

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Developing a Compelling BDR OfferingBefore you can go to market with a competitive business continuity solution, you must first identify what that market is. Who is your ideal customer? What problem of theirs can you solve?

Traditionally, businesses have relied on the four Ps of marketing (place, product, price and promotion) to dictate their launch strategy. While this is an excellent start—and one we’ll use to explain how to develop, market and sell your BDR solution—we suggest that you consider a fifth P, which is often the most important consideration in your go-to-market strategy: people.

People Who is your target customer? The answer to this differs for each MSP, which is why cookie-cutter BDR sales are old news. Before you can decide exactly what to offer, you need to know what people will buy. Let’s break this down with a few simple questions you can ask yourself:

Which prospects will be the easiest to sell my BDR services to?

Do I target small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) or larger enterprises?

Do I serve any verticals with compliance regulations?

Which interests or types of clients do I yield the highest percentage of revenue from?

When looking for net new customers, consider targeting a specialized industry or vertical with strict compliance or regulatory restrictions such as healthcare or finance. Organizations bound by HIPAA and PCI DSS can face severe penalties for small data backup, retention or storage violations, and they’re willing to pay a premium price for the right solution. Consider the last question listed above. Let’s say 75 percent of your remote monitoring and management (RMM) revenue is generated from dental offices. You’ll want to develop your BDR offering to meet their specific, niche business needs. More on this later!

Existing customers are likely the lowest-hanging fruit when bringing a new BDR offering to market, as they’re already purchasing some level of support or service and already know your organization and brand. You also have the added benefit of knowing what their infrastructure looks

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like, whether they’re backing up data in-house or partnering with a competing provider, and can more easily develop an effective sales pitch to upsell them on your business continuity offering. In the end, it’s far easier, faster and more cost-effective to upsell or cross-sell an existing client than to acquire new business, so this should be your move no matter what.

LocationLocation is an especially important factor when it comes to business continuity and disaster recovery planning. Think about how BDR demands ebb and flow with changing weather patterns. Due to the geographic nature of the region, SMBs in Louisiana are far more likely to be impacted by hurricanes, tropical storms and flooding than businesses in a landlocked state like South Dakota, for instance. Similarly, firms in Maine must face the very real possibility of losing power during the next blizzard, whereas territories in the south very rarely see snow. It’s worth mentioning that natural disasters and extreme weather conditions are not the only examples of threats to data—user error, cybercrime and hardware failure are all possible risks businesses face in any climate. Still, consider

how much easier it is to sell your business continuity services when you know what business need you’re serving and have a sense of direction in bringing your solution to market. If you’re located in an area that’s susceptible to weather that frequently jeopardizes uptime and employee productivity, your BDR offering should take this into account.

ProductAt this point, you should have gathered enough market data to determine what your BDR product offering will look like. Remember: software alone isn’t enough to differentiate you from your local competitors and drive profitability. Instead, you can meet your ideal audience’s specific needs with additional value-added services. Depending on what makes the most business sense, you may choose to invest heavily in DR testing. Let’s examine this lucrative opportunity further.

DR testing involves evaluating your processes and procedures for restoring data and getting a business back up and running when a disaster–natural or otherwise–occurs. These assessments are meant to give the MSP and SMB peace of mind. If you can demonstrate that your BDR

“We ran a disaster recovery test this week and it couldn’t have been easier.

We emailed Continuum’s NOC, they scheduled it, gave us the credentials we needed, and we were able to fire it up and complete the test. That was the best and quickest DR test we’ve

ever done for a customer.”

Wes MonkPresident

Digital Data Communications, Inc.

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solution is reliable and will prevent data loss and downtime in the event of a real IT emergency, then that’s one less thing your clients have to worry about. If your test fails and you’re able to correct vulnerabilities in a low-stakessituation, then that’s one less thing you have to worry about.

Before you can offer DR testing, however, you must first establish DR plans for each client. These plans are lengthy how-to documents that detail the processes and procedures needed to recover data in the event of a disaster. While there are many sections to include in effective DR plans, at a minimum they should outline the individual roles and responsibilities of all who are involved, ensuring both clients and MSPs understand what’s expected of them, how to activate a DR event and when and what to activate. To help you build or enhance your own DR plans, we’ve prepared a sample template you can follow on the next page. Keep in mind that disaster recovery plans are living, breathing documents that must constantly be re-evaluated to streamline incident response management and maximize business uptime. There is no shortage of considerations to keep in mind when

building these plans, and no two clients are exactly alike; each plan should be tailored to meet their unique business needs.

According to the 2016 “Disaster Recovery as a Service Attitude and Adoption Report,” 22 percent of participants test their DR plans less than one time per year—or never. In continuity planning, backed up data is only useful if it can be restored. Since DR testing is already essential if you offer business continuity, you might as well include it as a value-added service to upsell clients on. Some successful MSPs label these services “IT Fire Drills” when developing their BDR packages. Just like in a fire drill, everyone needs to be able to know what to do, how to do it, where to go, who to contact, etc. so as to be prepared.

If you’re planning on offering DR testing as a premium business continuity service, there are a few best practices to follow. DR testing should engage on the technology level, with IT and related functions, as well as the business level, considering the continuity of business operations and validation of data availability. More critical components should be tested more frequently, but it’s best to test regularly and for everything.

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Sample Disaster Recovery Testing Plan

1. Introduction

3. Team Roles and Responsibilities

5. Plan Activation

2. Crisis Communication

4. Results and Revisions

State the scope of your DR plan and the reason for it

Identify team leads responsible for enacting the plan in a disaster situation

Define appropriate response teams and outline roles expected of all individuals

List contact information for each person

Identify escalation policy or supplies call tree if designated lead cannot be reached

Set criteria for applying the DR plan

Identify individual(s) who determine if plan is launched

Establish a process for communicating the disaster to employees, clients, vendors and the media

Document state of client’s IT infrastructure after the disaster

Inventory which IT systems went offline during the emergency

Include revisions and updates made to the DR plan

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Test to ensure your DR plan is as robust as it needs to be. Verify that everyone knows exactly how to respond to restore operations as quickly as possible. Evaluate whether all information is up-to-date, paying special attention to contact information and current staff to see if these items need to be updated. Finally, test your backups and the ability to restore data and immediately flag any problems that arise. You may find that workarounds are needed, failures occur, procedures are altered or end-users are impacted. If that happens, then these incidents should be documented in your DR plan and re-tested to identify opportunities to improve the recovery process and prevent errors from occurring again. After you’ve recorded the DR test results, conduct a post-mortem with all involved to review lessons learned and areas for improvement. Then, continue to frequently revisit and strengthen your DR plans so that this process runs smoother going forward.

So what are some different ways that you can package DR testing? Two popular approaches among successful MSPs involve separating how frequently they conduct DR testing and how much time they spend developing DR plans. To illustrate how this works, let’s tie everything that

we’ve learned in this chapter thus far together.Recall a few of the examples that were laid out previously. For example, perhaps you’re determined to pursue the sizable number of dental offices that you already serve—you’ve identified that both their local presence and potential recurring revenue opportunity are significant. Next, ask yourself what it is that they actually need. As is the case with all U.S. medical practices, these offices need to main HIPAA compliance, otherwise they could risk shutting their doors for good. Parties that are guilty of HIPAA law violations can be fined anywhere from $100-$50,000 per violation with an annual maximum of $1.5 million. With so much at stake, these clients will be more willing to invest in additional BDR services. Here are some examples of how you can differentiate your services to meet their need:

HIPAA Compliance Network AssessmentsYou may already offer HIPAA compliance network assessments, highly valuable reports that quickly generate official documents needed for clients to sign Business Associate Agreements (BAA), including: HIPAA Policy and Procedures, HIPAA Risk Analysis, HIPAA Management Plan, Evidence of HIPAA Compliance and all associated

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supporting documentation. Additionally, some software modules can also deliver evidence, expert recommendations and direction to help mitigate and prevent lapses in HIPAA compliance. Leverage these insights and reports to strengthen your BDR offering! In the same way that you can package your DR tests as IT Fire Drills, you can offer these DR Health Check services to sweeten the pot.

Frequency of TestsWhereas a low-risk business like a barber shop may not need as much coverage, you may choose to offer more frequent testing options for your dental office target market. Rather than quarterly, organizations bound by federal regulations may need monthly or bi-weekly testing. Separating your business continuity services like this is yet another way to differentiate your BDR pricing and packaging strategy across your client base.

Onsite DR PlanningPerhaps you also offer the option of receiving onsite DR planning sessions to further calm client worries about potential non-compliance. Rather than relying on standard templates, these high-risk organizations will require a higher degree of specialization to keep their DR processes and procedures HIPAA compliant.

You can work together in-person to develop the necessary documentation and response readiness protocol.

Offsite Data Replication Having a flexible data replication schedule allows you to sync data to an office data center or cloud on a schedule that best meets the needs of each of your clients. Building in extra layers of security and data redundancy helps optimize data restoration and minimize data loss during disaster scenarios that may otherwise threaten compliance.

Price and PackagingSo far, you should have identified who your target market is, what their specific needs are and how you’ll address those demands. Now compile this information to develop a pricing and packaging strategy. For this, there are five main models:

1. Tiered Pricing2. A La Carte Pricing3. All-Inclusive4. Per-User5. Per-DeviceFor a comprehensive overview of each pricing model, as well as their advantages and disadvantages – Read our Pricing Profitably eBook.

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Marketing Your Business Continuity SolutionThe fourth and final P—promotion—entails how you’ll capture interest when marketing your services.

PromotionTo attract new prospects to your BDR services, it is recommended that you adopt a combination of inbound and outbound marketing, leveraging social media and the Web, and developing a comprehensive engagement strategy that draws on all available resources for messaging, generating leads and increasing sales. But what are inbound and outbound marketing, and how do the two differ? With outbound activities, you actively seek out new prospects, whereas with inbound, you allow them to find you. We cover the nuts and bolts of each in our eBook, The Complete Guide to MSP Marketing. For the purposes of this section, we’ll describe how you can use inbound and outbound to promote your BDR offering.

Outbound MarketingOutbound marketing is the original marketing communications strategy. It relies on generating demand by pushing messaging in front of

current and potential customers through a variety of channels. Typical vehicles include direct mail, print and online advertising, cold calling, telemarketing, sales fliers and the like. While it’s often easier and more cost-effective to generate leads by optimizing your content and Web marketing efforts through inbound marketing and lead generation, there are a number of ways you can successfully incorporate more outbound methods into your BDR marketing program.

Referral ProgramsAs an MSP, you may have primarily grown your business through client referrals. Word-of-mouth marketing is an incredibly impactful form of social proof because buyer behavior is easily influenced by other people’s experiences with goods and services. Consider the last time you checked Yelp reviews before deciding on a restaurant, or maybe you even dined at the restaurant with the longest line. The same applies for SMBs when deciding on a managed services provider and business continuity solution. They want to work alongside someone with a proven track record of helping organizations of similar size, makeup and business concentration. For instance, a healthcare provider will likely feel safer trusting you with the protection and regulation of their

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data if another healthcare organization praises your HIPAA-compliant backup and disaster recovery services.

Capitalize on this. Turn your biggest business continuity champions into brand advocates by incentivizing them to recommend suitable candidates for your BDR services. Then once these referrals close into clients, compensate those who lent a helping hand. Note: recruiting BDR leads through referral programs may be an example of outbound marketing, but you can still leverage social proof and client testimonials in your inbound efforts. Either way, your clients are willing to speak up for you, and you should take advantage of that!

Attend or Host an EventOftentimes, there’s no substitute for face-to-face business interactions. Attending industry-related events helps you gain brand visibility and recognition. Additionally, when you attend you can form new or strengthen existing relationships with prospects that may be in need of your business continuity services. You can even apply to speak at these events. For instance, you can present a session on the hidden threats to company data and how BDR can help.

When choosing events to attend, pick those that will draw your ideal audience. If your BDR sales strategy is to target dental offices, research when the American Dental Association is having their next conference near you and sign up. Getting out in front of your prospects and showing a genuine interest in the field they work in will differentiate your BDR services from those of your competitors because ultimately, IT is a relationship-driven business.

All IT is local, so every MSP should participate in local community events. Do you have a list of names and businesses that you’d like to sell or upsell your business continuity solution to? Invite them out for drinks or host a movie night! This kind of marketing helps you have meaningful conversations with attractive prospects in a non-intimidating way. Keep the conversation light and personal. Don’t go in for the immediate sell. You will already have collected attendees’ contact information, so you can (and should) follow up with them afterward. Instead, use this time to build a connection and create a lasting impression. You will find you can glean useful information about peoples’ various business needs and pain points without directly pitching

Attending industry-related events helps you gain brand visibility and recognition.

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them your solution. Think about asking any of the following:

What does your business or organization do, and who do you serve?

Do you have an e-commerce component to your website?

How many employees do you have in your office?

Have company files and data ever been lost or accidentally deleted?

Do you allow your employees to bring their personal devices into the workplace?

Answers to any one of these questions can get you that much closer to figuring out who’s the right fit for your business continuity services.

Inbound MarketingInbound is known as the more client-centric approach to sales and marketing because it caters to how people make their purchasing decisions today. Traditionally, buyer behavior was linear and controlled by sales teams. Consumers saw ads for services in magazines, newspapers, the Yellow Pages, etc. and called up the business to inquire further. They took what was given to them. Now, with the advent

of the Internet and explosion of communication mediums, the purchasing journey is no longer as predictable or simple. According to Salesforce, it takes roughly six to eight touches to generate a viable sales lead. Today, your potential prospects are turning to the Web for all their business-related questions, concerns and decisions. They’re looking for social proof from review sites, customer service feedback from social media channels, expertise and answers to their problems from Web content, and more. What does this mean for MSPs? Together, these individual touches establish your credibility, reliability, and trustworthiness, laying the stepping stones on the path toward the BDR sale.

Rather than leading with the value your business continuity services can provide clients, begin by asking yourself what your clients actually need. You should have already done that in identifying your ideal audience and crafting your market strategy, but this focus should carry through all marketing efforts, regardless of venue or medium. So what are some ways you can use your Web and content marketing efforts to attract potential prospects and convert them into BDR leads? Let’s walk through a few examples:

Today, your potential prospects are turning to the Web for all their business-related questions, concerns and decisions.

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Website

BDR Product PageThe best websites are those focused on high-quality content that satisfies viewer needs, answers questions, addresses pain points, showcases value and converts the visitor into a contactable lead. When creating Web content to support your BDR services, focus on creating messaging that will resonate with your prospects. Leading with their pain points is an effective tactic. You could begin your business continuity solution page with a headline asking visitors if they’ve ever experienced downtime or been unable to maintain employee productivity and profitability because they couldn’t access the files they needed.

HomepageYour home page is like the Park Place of your website real estate. Raise your property worth by featuring a quote from a client whose data was saved because of your BDR solution and expert DR planning. Additionally, ensure it’s easy for visitors to find your BDR product page by including in universal navigation and linking where appropriate. Now, when marketing your BDR services on your homepage, be careful

not to ask for too much too soon. Many MSPs mistakenly ask their visitors to schedule a consultation upon first arriving at the homepage. Instead, offer a piece of content that speaks to the business continuity need, and require visitors to fill out a form to receive it. Voila! You’ve generated an inbound marketing lead.

So what are examples of content you want to be creating to market your BDR services?

Blog Posts (Include Podcasts and Videos)Well-crafted, regularly updated company blog posts addressing common concerns of existing and prospective clients are a proven way to position yourself as both a thought leader and a value-added service provider. Publish posts that speak to the value of your BDR solution, and link back to your solutions webpage. For instance, you can explain how a business owner would calculate the cost of downtime for a business or expose the most frequent contributors to data loss. And if you feel more comfortable speaking than writing, blogs make great mediums for podcast and video interviews. Whatever you decide to post on your blog, keep it digestible, engaging and informative.

The best websites are those focused on high-quality content that satisfies viewer needs, answers questions, addresses pain points, showcases value and converts the visitor into a contactable lead.

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eBooksAt the end of your blog posts and on your BDR product page, offer a related eBook that takes a deeper look at business continuity. Perhaps you repurpose five related blog posts that you’ve already written on the subject and reframe the content as one new cohesive idea. Alternatively, you could explore the content in an existing blog post further. Let’s say you publish that piece listing the major sources of data loss. You could then zoom in on one of those threats, like cybercrime, and write an eBook about why BDR is a business’s only failsafe when successfully targeted in a cyber attack.

ResearchNumbers are hard to argue with. That’s why statistics and the latest research findings make for compelling marketing material when prospects need convincing. Share supporting data and figures in all content and across all content channels. To help you, we’ve created a series of charts that you can utilize in your own sales and marketing efforts. See the Why SMBs Need to Disaster-Proof Their Business graph on the left. Your prospect may resist your BDR solution if they’re in denial that they’ll ever be faced with a disaster scenario. With a chart like

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Social MediaJust because you publish a piece of content doesn’t mean that it will automatically get found and your job is done. That’s where social media comes in! Social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ offer an unmatched level of immediacy and engagement with a growing prospect audience. To maximize the visibility of your educational, helpful and prescriptive content and attract new BDR prospects, join the online BDR conversation and keep sharing these pieces across your social channels. Then, encourage your employees to do the same! Beyond scheduling BDR content, monitor social dialogue for mentions that you can contribute to. Perhaps someone asks what the difference is between backup and BDR. You could point them to your informational blog post on the subject and begin forming a relationship in this way. Better yet, suppose someone complains about the lack of responsiveness or reliability from their BDR provider. This could be your chance to get on their radar by reaching out, introducing yourself and offering useful content, thus showing that you’re always available to help clients out with their business needs.

this in your arsenal, you can demonstrate that they may be risking their business’s survival rate by not having a business continuity plan in place.

Webinars Hold a digital event! Maybe you’d like to give a presentation at an upcoming event as suggested, but your local calendar is empty or you cannot afford the cost of admission. Many MSPs find webinars a valuable and cost-effective way to spread the word about their BDR services and the value they create for clients. Often, they have these clients tell their success stories or share an anecdote about a time that an MSP’s proactive DR services saved the day. These Web-hosted presentations are typically 20 to 60 minutes in length, and blend the immediacy of a live event with the convenience and economy of a Web show that can be viewed from anywhere. They’re also the lead generation gift that keeps on giving! Just as you can gate registration behind a form prior to the actual event, slide decks and on-demand replays of the event keep the content relevant and productive for months, and leads generated from engaged participants are usually of high value.

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8. What is your current plan for protecting the integrity and security of your data?9. What are your top priorities as far as data backup and disaster recovery is concerned?10. What investments have you made in hardware/storage over the last four to five years?

When selling BDR, you have to get to know the prospect and their business needs first. Modern, client-centric sales involve talking with, NOT talking at, SMBs. These 10 discovery questions should help you start that dialogue, pinpoint worthwhile, high-close prospects and move them further along through the BDR sales journey.

Converting BDR Prospects into Clients with Your Sales AppointmentBy this time in the sales journey, you’ve had several conversations with a given prospect and have begun to establish a personal connection. They believe you’re trustworthy and see the value in learning more about the business continuity services you have to offer. At the same time, you’ve qualified them enough to know that you are focusing on a prospect with a high likelihood of converting into a client. It’s now finally time to conduct an onsite sales appointment, lay your

Selling Your Business Continuity SolutionQualifying BDR Leads By now, you should have a decent number of leads in your sales pipeline, but not all leads are created equal. The time it takes to close a sale is costly, and you want to minimize that expense by laying the groundwork prior. Before setting your sales appointment, determine if a prospect is a good fit by asking any of the following BDR sales discovery questions:

1. What type of customer records are

you storing?

2. How are you currently storing that data?

3. What regulations do you need to comply with?

4. What additional, non-customer related data

are you storing on your machines?

5. What problems have you faced in the past

related to data loss or corruption?

6. What percentage of your standard business operations would be impacted if your records/

data were temporarily unavailable or deleted?

7. How long could you keep your business running without access to your data?

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potential customers physically calculate the costs and risks associated with any potential downtime or interruption at their organization. The formula below can be used to help you run the numbers and is a great lead-in to discuss how you’ll mitigate these risks in a way that’s cost-effective.

Lost revenue: Identify all areas of the business that generate revenue, and estimate what percentage of that revenue is dependent on IT uptime.

Lost productivity: Calculate each employee’s hourly rate and determine what percentage of employee productivity is reliant on uptime. Add up those costs for all employees.

Cost to Recover: Combine the costs of services needed to recover lost data, physical tools/devices that may need repairs or replacements, ongoing costs as a result of data loss and more.

Intangible Costs: Any damage to reputation or brand results in dollars lost. The slightest downtime can cast an insurmountable shadow over your business—and how that downtime is handled can be the difference between

cards out on the table and make your pitch. But don’t rush to break out the contracts just yet! Ease prospects into the sale with a value presentation first.

Make the Case for Business Continuity For the presentation, be sure to express the business value of adopting a business continuity solution. Chances are, your customers aren’t too interested in blocks, files, deltas and the inner-workings of your backup technology— they just want to know whether or not it works. When marketing BDR, it’s important not to get bogged down in tech specs or features; disaster recovery as a service is about providing peace of mind, and that’s the mindset you’ll want to have when building content, messaging and talking points. Everyone understands the headaches associated with data loss, whether they’ve experienced an entire site outage or lost the latest version of an important presentation. Present your solution as a way to never experience these problems again and to eliminate downtime should disaster strike. You can do this in a number of ways:

Calculate the Cost of Downtime A great way to showcase the value of your BDR offering is to calculate the costs associated with any disaster or unplanned downtime to help

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3. They would be financially liable to their clients or in violation of regulatory standards over the course of that downtime, and would have to pay some form of monetary penalty.

These short-term consequences of downtime can hurt, but it’s important that the prospect understands the long-term consequences of such an event. After all, an acute financial hit to business can be crippling, but it does not always seem insurmountable to every prospect.

Explain the Chances of Survival Again, lean heavily on statistics! As depicted in the chart on page 28, 40 percent of businesses go under immediately after a disaster, 60 percent fail within six months, and a whopping 90 percent of organizations without a BDR solution are out of business within two years. No matter how confident a person is in their business, those are statistics that anyone who is already concerned about downtime will not be able to ignore. In many cases, you may not always have to present the need for BDR—you need to make the point that businesses need to be able to recover as fast as possible after a disaster in order to survive.

recovering and going under. These can be difficult to forecast, but having a thorough understanding of the potential long-term impact on future sales and customer retention can help business owners see the real value of being genuinely prepared for such an event.

The Result: If all goes to plan, the costs of downtime should far outpace the cost of your BDR services, creating a compelling sales argument for you to present to potential customers.

Propose a Hypothetical Situation“Imagine one business day without your computer systems.” If you’ve qualified your prospect correctly, this question should sting to even consider. If it doesn’t, you may not have the right lead in your sales funnel. The best backup and disaster recovery prospects are organizations that rely on computer systems in their daily operations in one way or another; to lose that data would amount to a loss of productivity and profits.Typical answers to this question would likely include the following components:1. They would be unable to do any business at all;2. Business would continue, but at a greatly reduced rate, and/or

The best backup and disaster recovery prospects are organizations that rely on computer systems in their daily operations in one way or another; to lose that data would amount to a loss of productivity and profits.

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enterprise public cloud provider, leveraging highly reliable and secure data storage like that provided by IBM’s Cloud Infrastructure, clients will feel more comfortable leaving their sensitive information in your charge. There are many anxieties about the security of the cloud. Reduce these fears and enable the BDR sale by stressing that you work with a trusted brand and tested technology.

Establish Your Proven Track RecordLeading with your years of experience offering BDR services can be an effective sales tactic. Businesses take a huge leap of faith when they trust an outside party with their business uptime and valuable company data. It’s immensely comforting to know that they’re working with seasoned experts, who’ve managed countless clients and IT infrastructures. When the profitability and survival rate of a firm is at stake, there’s no room for error. Having inexperienced technicians that learn as they go is simply not an option, especially for organizations with more rigid data standards. If you’ve seen and done it all, you’ll stand out against some of your more novice competitors! Drive your worth home by sharing that social proof you gathered in the BDR marketing phase. Think about how powerful

Make the Case for Your BDR Services Getting your prospects to understand the value of business continuity is half the battle. For the final leg of the journey, you need to convince them that your BDR solution is the best one for the job. Here are a few points you’ll want to stress before discussing terms.

Showcase Your Expertise According to CompTIA’s study, “IT Opportunities in the Professional Services Vertical,” study, 46 percent of SMBs leverage managed IT services because they have a need for greater technical expertise. Your prospects have neither the skillset nor the bandwidth to manage a BDR solution, yet they rely on 24x7x365 business uptime. Prove to them that your team is up to the task! List the various certifications that your technicians hold and explain that they possess all the knowledge needed to perform core BDR tasks, such as setting recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs), troubleshooting errors, regularly testing and verifying backup systems, spinning up servers offsite or in the cloud and more.

Stress That Your BDR Solution is Backed by Trusted TechnologyA name like IBM carries a lot of weight. If your BDR platform provider partners with an

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your pitch is when you can say, “Here are 10 companies with similar business goals and pain points that all swear by our business continuity services!”

Win Them Over with Your Customized, Personalized Service DeliveryFinally, every client likes to feel special. Let your prospects know that they won’t just be one of the many waiting in the queue if they choose you as their BDR provider. Instead, they’ll receive the customized, personalized technical support that only your highly-skilled team of technicians and engineers can provide. What differentiates your services from every other BDR provider on the block? Your people. Remember that. There is no substitute for friendly, professional, solution-driven, round-the-clock support. SMBs need to be able to access their data and get online no matter the time of day. Express that your expert team will do all in its power to see to this so that clients can focus on what really matters: maintaining efficiency, productivity and profitability.

There is no substitute for friendly, professional, solution-driven,

round-the-clock support.

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TOPICS YOU’LL COVER:

Chapter FourContinuity247® and the Power of Fully-Managed BDRThe Concept of Fully-Managed BDR and 24x7 NOC Support

An Overview of Continuity247’s Key Features and Tech Specs

Access to a Continuity247 Demonstration to Explore the Platform for Yourself

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Key Benefits of Continuum’s Fully-Managed BDR Platform, Continuity247®

Complete NOC Support Day-to-day management and verificationof backups can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, and when things don’t quite go as planned, having to drop everything to recover client data can get in the way of other tasks. With Continuity247, Continuum’s NOC technicians absorb these responsibilities so that you’re free to focus on building your business—and your technicians can have the bandwidth to complete high-value, revenue-driving work. Our technical teams offer complete disaster recovery support, troubleshooting for failed backups, testing, and more, and they’re available 24x7x365 via phone, email or Web-based chat. And although we’re constantly supporting the platform behind the scenes, only you have access to encrypted data.

Powerful Data Security and Reliable Storage Continuum has partnered with IBM’s Cloud Infrastructure to offer our partners highly-secure and reliable public cloud storage for all data. Information is encrypted using industry-standard AES-256 both at rest and in

transit, and our intelligent block-level backup maximizes resource efficiency and utilization by identifying and replicating only those changes that have occurred since your last incremental backup. Continuity247 also offers self-service granular file and folder recovery, bare-metal restores for Windows® and complete database restores for Exchange and SQL to simplify the recovery process.

Automated Recovery Point Verification.Continuity247’s Tru-Verify™ feature auto-verifies the integrity of recovery points to ensure that the most recent recovery point of all protected machines can be virtualized in the event of a disaster. Tru-Verify surpasses similar functionality of competing products with a time-lapse of the entire boot process, intelligently differentiating between false positives and true boot process. MSPs can also auto-generate email reports to demonstrate that data has been backed up successfully, giving you and your clients more confidence than ever that their data is safe and accessible.

Pay-As-You-Go Pricing with No Annual CommitmentContinuity247’s pricing model is designed to put you in control. There are no annual contracts or commitments, and our monthly billing is based

“Continuum focuses on the core of what MSPs need and what they offer to their customers. Looking at Continuity247, I look at the due diligence they did in acquiring a proven product in R1Soft

that’s already backing up thousands of web hosting providers. The other critical piece is that Continuum has a great track record of evolving products and making

them better—so I have all the confidence in the world that they’re going to continue

to evolve this product as well as they’ve improved their others.”

Michael KourkoulakosManaging Principal

New England Network Solutions

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on the amount of live data on each protected machine—so you’re only paying for what you’re using. We offer a range of packages and deployment options, including a local-only backup offering and three cloud-based backup offerings to help you meet the needs of any client.

How Continuum’s Continuity247® WorksData backed up using Continuity247 is stored on a local appliance and can be replicated offsite to the cloud, so your clients can enjoy true peace of mind knowing that business continuity will be maintained in the event of user error, malware or a disaster scenario. Continuum’s platform uses IBM’s Cloud Infrastructure and replicates data across multiple U.S. data centers to help guarantee reliability and availability. In the event of a disaster, Continuum’s NOC will spin up your client’s complete site as virtual machines on a private network in the cloud, with VPN access for you and your clients. Downtime is minimized, and business operations can continue as usual.Continuum is committed to helping MSPs capitalize on the opportunities presented by cloud computing and the ability to offer business continuity as a service to customers. Continuum’s

Protected Machines with Backup Agents

Appliance with Server Backup Manager

(SBM)

Continuity247 Cloud

Integrated with ITSupport Portal for Single Pane of Glass Management

Fully Managed 24x7x365 by Continuum’s

NOC Technicians

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As the importance of continuous uptime, data protection and other information management needs continue to grow, businesses across all industries require effective disaster recovery and continuity planning as part of their daily operations. MSPs are well-positioned to bring solution expertise and services to SMBs, acting as strategic business and technology advisors and helping these organizations embrace modern cloud-based technologies.

With Continuum’s fully-managed Continuity247 platform, directly supported by 700+ technicians at the company’s Network Operations Center, service providers can substantially extend their workforce and breadth of expertise—enabling them to cost-effectively deliver robust continuity services while generating impressive margins.

Conclusion

Continuity247 platform offers a powerful blend of backup technology, secure and reliable cloud storage and comprehensive support from our own Network Operations Center technicians—enabling you to deliver robust continuity and disaster recovery services to your customers while realizing impressive margins and leveraging our technical teams for support.

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About the Authors

Zeshan Raja

Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Zeshan Raja is Assistant Director, Partner Success at Continuum. Previously, he held Sr. Technical

Account Manager and Product Specialist positions at Continuum and Zenith Infotech. Prior to that, he was a Network Operations Center

Analyst for Industrial Scientific, global leader in gas detection. Zeshan has a bachelor’s degree in Information Science and recently received his master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of

Pittsburgh.

Randy Bowie

Randy leads Continuum’s Continuity247 and R1Soft backup and disaster recovery product lines. He brings a passion for

building great software and creating solutions that help systems administrators and IT operations keep everything humming. Prior to Continuum, Randy held technical leadership roles at Idera, Pros and NetIQ. He ran engineering for Idera, providing award-winning tools for Microsoft SQL Server® and SharePoint® management and

the R1Soft backup and disaster recovery solution. At NetIQ, Randy directed R&D for three key lines of business, delivering

the world’s best solutions for security, configuration control and systems management.

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ABOUT CONTINUUM Continuum’s IT management platform and pay-as-you-growmodel are purpose-built to facilitate MSP growth, and aredesigned with flexibility and scalability in mind.

Our fully-managed Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)and Backup Disaster and Recovery (BDR) offerings are backedby 700+ NOC technicians and 200+ frontline Help Deskstaff—so you can reduce the cost of service delivery, extendyour workforce and add to your bottom line.

It’s time to embrace the cloud! Continuum Managed Services is here to help every step of the way. Schedule a demo for Continuity247 today and let’s get started!

Schedule Your Demo Today

Continuum Managed Services • 99 High Street, 31st Floor • Boston, MA 02110 • 1-866-223-7394 • © 2016 All Rights Reserved • Updated 11/2016