If you’re an MSP, it’s one thing to hear about what could go wrong with your customers’ data and infrastructure. It’s another to live through full-blown disasters like ransomware attacks and office fires. But these are exactly the types of disruptions that PC Wizard, a Connecticut-based MSP, has faced -- and conquered -- in its mission to deliver flawless managed IT services to its clients.
Thanks to a fast and reliable disaster recovery process based on MSP360 Managed Backup, PC Wizard has been able to safeguard its clients’ business continuity even in the face of severe and unexpected disruptions.
Overview
Founded in 1997, PC Wizard delivers a full menu of managed IT services to clients across several U.S. states. In all, it counts about 600 customers among its client base.
The company provides managed backup and recovery services for about 120 of those clients. Among them are businesses in sensitive verticals such as healthcare and manufacturing, where achieving fast recovery for its clients in the event of data loss or infrastructure damage is a key priority.
Without quick disaster recovery, PC Wizard’s clients are at serious risk of being unable to maintain business continuity. Manufacturing operations break down when IT infrastructure fails. Healthcare providers can’t do their jobs if they are missing crucial patient information.
Backup solution
PC Wizard’s backup operations are powered by MSP360 Managed Backup. In the past, the company used Mozy (now a part of Carbonite), but migrated to MSP360 six years ago because of MSP360’s centralized backup management features, client-side encryption, and its support for multiple cloud storage options.
MSP360’s ability to back up multiple types of data is important to PC Wizard as well. With MSP360, PC Wizard is able to back up SQL databases, Hyper-V guests, and system images in addition to file systems.
MSP360’s low price point, too, was a deciding factor in PC Wizard’s decision to build its backup processes around the platform. The company’s previous backup solution cost so much to license that it was difficult to turn a profit. With MSP360, the company has significantly expanded its backup profit margins, at the same time providing far more robust backup and recovery service.
For backup storage, PC Wizard relies on local media as well as Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. They backup all files to two cloud locations each day to provide enhanced redundancy (two cloud locations + local backup).
Indeed, delivering ultra-reliable backup services is so important to PC Wizard that it allocates a significant portion of time each day to addressing issues with the 400+ backup plans run each night as well as to perform recovery testing, maintain the licenses, perform restores, etc. The company is able to charge a premium for its backup solution because it provides clients with a high degree of confidence that their data will remain safe and can be recovered quickly, no matter what happens to their production systems.
Recovery examples
PC Wizard has made good on that promise in the face of numerous major disasters.
In 2020, the most serious incidents that the company’s clients faced were ransomware attacks. PC Wizard successfully recovered data following three major ransomware attacks in that year, including one that was so severe that it spread from production systems to backup data stored on clients’ local infrastructure. In that case, PC Wizard performed an image-based recovery of affected systems to the cloud, which facilitated a faster recovery than copying individual files and rebuilding affected servers manually. By replacing the breached on-premises systems with virtual machines running in the cloud, PC Wizard restored business continuity quickly and saved its client from paying the ransom.
In another major disaster, PC Wizard restored operations for a client whose office suffered a fire. Not only was the on-premises hardware damaged, but personnel were not even allowed on site to retrieve any devices following the disaster. By recovering data from cloud-based backups to a server in its own office, PC Wizard was able to restore full business continuity for the client in a mere twenty-four hours, ensuring that the fire did not become a critical threat to the business.
Conclusion
As an MSP, providing data backup and recovery services means preparing not just for minor disruptions like accidental file deletion or temporary network failure. It also requires being ready to recover critical systems quickly in the event of major disasters, such as fires and ransomware breaches.
As PC Wizard’s experience shows, MSP360 Managed Backup provides the foundation for a backup and recovery service that allows MSPs to deliver fully on the promises they make to their clients. By allowing backup storage in multiple clouds, as well as supporting a range of recovery options, MSP360 maximizes MSPs’ ability to restore business continuity fast, no matter how severe the disruption.
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