As voice and video continue to flood IP networks, demand for storage will continue to escalate. Instead of buying on-site storage, backup and recovery systems, many businesses are opting to outsource these offerings to manage storage service providers. Get Started: Register to enter our Resource Center, where you can download guides to emerging managed storage services. And check back often. We post new guides in the MSPmentor Resource Center every week.
Zenith Infotech has been briefing managed service providers about a range of new services from the company. In an October 1 blog entry, the folks at Everon Technology Services offer some perspectives regarding Zenith’s Data Center as a Service, Box Office and Data Center in a Rack efforts. Read More >
When the ConnectWise Partner Summit kicks off this week in Orlando, Fla., I’ll be sitting down with managed service providers and vendors to gather their observations. Roughly 700 MSPs are expected to attend the event. Here are five key trends I expect to track at the conference. Read More >
Talk about timely, on-point messaging. MasterIT, one of our MSPmentor 100 companies, is hosting a “non-technical” symposium October 30 at the FedEx Institute of Technology in Memphis, Tenn.
The timing and positioning of this event offer five key lessons to rival managed service providers. Here they are:
It would be interesting to see how many terabytes (petabytes? exabytes or more?) of data were backed up and moved out of the Gulf Coast area ahead of Hurricane Gustav. Also, I wonder how much of that data was moved into commercial cloud services. Anybody have any estimates or seen any editorial coverage worth noting?
Managed storage providers take note: CDW is launching a remote backup service based on Asigra Televaulting, according to a press release from Asigra. The CDW-Asigra relationship comes only a week after MSPmentor readers debated whether basic online backup services would commoditize. Anybody concerned about CDW pushing deeper into this market or is this a non-event for managed service providers?
At what point does the online backup market become saturated? I ask myself that question at least once a week. The reason: I get flooded with emails, voicemails and press releases about managed service providers and resellers signing up for online backup services.
The latest example: Pro Softnet Corp. says its IBackup service now has more than 2,000 reseller partners and 150 new resellers are signing up per month.
Here’s how managed service providers can continue to compete — and differentiate — in the managed storage market.
Does Apple want to be a managed service provider? In some ways, yes. But so far those efforts aren’t going too well. The company’s MobileMe service — a cloud-based system designed to manage your contacts and calendars across a range of devices — is taking a beating from critics. Even The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, typically an Apple advocate, is telling readers that MobileMe is filled with problems.
From Apple’s MobileMe to Amazon.com’s Simple Storage Service (S3), we are seeing multiple examples of consumer-oriented companies stumbling a bit as they introduce managed services, software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-based solutions. Read More >
More than 70 percent of successful managed service providers offer some form of managed storage, according to our MSPmentor 100 survey. Despite that lofty figure, the online storage market continues to enjoy strong growth.
One prime example: Vembu since February has attracted roughly 350 new online storage partners — pushing its worldwide customer base to more than 900 partners, according to Lakshmanan Narayan, president for Vembu. Read More >
