DataFort Hi-5 As Managed Service

DataFort, developer of data protection managed services, announced the arrival of Hi-5, a backup, recovery and virtual server offering that boasts the fastest system recovery possible, short of implementing full system replication.  

Decreasing Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), the length of time between a system failure and its resumption, is the problem that has become one of the most pressing issues for modern organisations; Hi-5 decreases RTOs to minutes from the hours or days commonly associated with traditional backup solutions like tape. But with no capital expense and fully inclusive pricing, Hi-5 is a service that will receive approval from the most cost-conscious customer. Hi-5 turns data and system recovery into an affordable service and as such it eliminates any headaches traditionally associated with the purchase, installation and maintenance of a high-availability strategy like replication.
 
DataFort is aiming Hi-5 at selected resellers and service providers who understand they can maximise business potential by leveraging off external resources and by adding this very powerful proposition to their portfolios. Thanks to DataFort’s strong focus on SLAs, compliance and client management, Hi-5 has the potential to quickly generate high revenues for the right partners. The service is also directly aimed at SMBs who wish to take advantage of high availability at a fixed, affordable monthly cost.
 
In today’s economic and regulatory climate many organisations or departments (e.g. those that operate in an FSA-regulated environment or hold staff or patients’ records) need the ability to rely on a data strategy that provides them with high data availability; however, given the cost of replication solutions they often cannot meet this requirement. Hi-5 is unique because it is a comprehensive solution that provides data recovery, system recovery, system failover to a virtual duplicate server, disaster recovery and data archiving in one reasonably-priced package. As an added bonus, DataFort retains ownership of the hardware which it replaces or upgrades as necessary; this way the customer is not forced to purchase rapidly-depreciating hardware but simply pays a monthly fee. Also, with Hi-5, resellers can repair or replace failed servers with consideration instead of panic.
 
After a failure DataFort invokes the virtual server to replace the failed equipment so that productivity is not compromised. A technician can then resolve the problem with the production server and bring it back online. This is pretty much unheard of in an SMB solution; nobody offers this level of service to this market segment.
 
"Many of our competitors today only provide a DIY solution where the service provider or even the end user is responsible for its purchase, installation and management," said Marcie Terman, business development director at DataFort. "The Hi-5 service model meets the objectives of progressive companies who need both quick recovery times from server failure or disruptive events and long-term compliant archiving. When used in combination with the full DataFort portfolio of high security data services Hi-5 will create a winning proposition that will be very attractive to ambitious companies who want to offer a high availability solution that will differentiate them from the competition."
 
Hi-5 offers a number of tangible benefits including:

• The peace of mind of a totally-managed solution with 24/7 support. The user and even the reseller do not need to worry about costly overheads and the need to learn how to manage and maintain a complex solution. For the channel this has a significant impact on margins;
• Fast recovery both from a failed server and in the case of a disaster. DataFort can usually have a user back up and running from a server failure within 15 minutes, a huge difference from the tape backup strategies that most SMBs still rely on today;
• Value: with Hi-5 users enjoy recovery speeds nearing those of system replication without the costs.

"Because DataFort manages all aspect of the Hi-5 service resellers only need to attend a three-hour training session in order to be ready to offer the service to their customers. The time-to-revenue is extremely short with Hi-5," continued Terman.
 
"Organisations cannot wait for days to restore their data after a failure, nor can they have large gaps between snapshots because information is their lifeblood," said Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at EuroLAN. "Any offering that brings availability levels close to those of replication within the financial reach of a broader segment of the market is very well positioned to become very successful."