Solving SME data protection challenges with Acronis

Peter French, Managing Director of Synapsys

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Comprehensive IT solutions provider Gravit8 is reaping the benefits of a strategic decision in 2005 to switch to Acronis through award-winning local Acronis distributor Synapsys.

“Gravit8 provides a good case study of how MSPs and resellers bring the reliability of Acronis data protection to their customers and also build a sustainable and profitable business,” observes Synapsys MD Peter French.

Servicing an SME-client base across diverse industries throughout South Africa, Cape-based Gravit8 identified as a common denominator the need for solutions that could quickly and reliably backup and recover large data volumes – without breaking the bank.

Need for change

An urgent client server replacement situation prompted the company's initial move to Acronis, as it was the only bare-metal restore solution available at the time and could get Gravit8 up and running in under two hours.

On the decision to switch to Acronis, Gary Fouché, Co-Owner at Gravit8, recalls: “Our primary goal was to find a solution which could handle high volumes of data with negligible impact on connectivity and little technical staff overhead.

“Acronis ticked all these boxes while providing heaps of additional features that we’re now using – and cannot do without,” Fouché explains.

Next move: The cloud

Gary Fouché, Co-Owner of Gravit8

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Gravit8’s first test of Acronis Backup Cloud followed soon after the platform was released, and the team was so impressed that the decision to later add Acronis Cyber Cloud (formerly Acronis Data Cloud) came naturally.

Fouché continues: “The migration to Acronis [Cyber] Cloud was a no-brainer. Since we set it up as a solution, provisioning seats and getting clients’ backup jobs running can be done in under 10 minutes from order time.”

“Onboarding is faster too. We can have clients doing incremental backups within 24 hours of the initial seed deployment, as opposed to waiting four or five days to upload to the cloud,” says Fouché.

Ease of use

Since deploying its first Acronis solution, the team at Gravit8 has been able to do more for its customers without needing to invest time or money in training.

“Acronis solutions are quick and easy to use,” explains Fouché. “The dashboard on Acronis [Cyber] Cloud has made life incredibly easy for our monitoring team. A single glance can tell us if all backup jobs across all of our clients were successful.”

He adds that, apart from one staff member who has attended Acronis training sessions, the rest of their engineering team makes use of the Acronis solutions (restores, reconfirmation, etc) on the fly – thanks to the intuitive and simple interface and concepts.

Good partnerships critical

Gravit8’s close working relationship with local Acronis distributor Synapsys has been an important factor in their success, notes Fouché.

“Acronis recognises that the best way to deliver and support its solutions is through strong channel partnerships,” French concurs. “Gary and his team have striven to consistently deliver robust, reliable and innovative solutions to their customers. We delight in our partners’ successes, so it’s a real pleasure for us to have played a role – however small – in Gravit8’s growth.”

No looking back

From the company's initial change to Acronis as preferred on-premises backup solution a mere year after the company was formed, Gravit8 has enjoyed steady growth and expansion in its backup and recovery offerings.

“Since moving to Acronis in 2005, we have not looked back,” says Fouché. “The ability to backup SharePoint and Microsoft Office 365 is also a game-changer for us. So far, we’ve seen a 95% increase in total storage usage and, for the past two years, all of our offers of backup are profitable.”

A key differentiator in the local market is Gravit8’s capacity to backup both locally and in the cloud, and then recover quickly. “Gravit8 has consistently been able to offer our customers full server restores from on-site storage in about two hours and from the cloud in about four,” confirms Fouché. “Other companies can’t hope to match those speeds while still making a profit.”

“The ability to offer customers multiple cloud-based services – including backup, disaster recovery, secure file sync and share, and blockchain-based file authentication and verification – from a single Acronis Cyber Cloud installation means that MSP partners like Gravit8 can look forward to continued expansion, growth and profitability,” concludes French.