SOS Backups SQL the MSP Way

SOS Backups SQL the MSP Way

By Doug Barney

There are many types of backup software. You have general purpose tools, ones built specifically for virtual machines, application- and data-type specific, those tuned to also allow file sharing, and many tuned for disaster recovery and business continuity.

And don’t even get us started on all the ways the software can be deployed; on-premises, all in the cloud, or hybrid cloud.

SOS Online Backup covers much of this territory already, and its newest tool handles application-specific duties by being specially tailored for SQL Server, and aimed at the channel, including MSPs. Current partners can download the new software for free.

Don’t think you have to throw out or circumvent your existing SOS backup tool. Specific backup for SQL Server 2008 and 2012 is integrated with the existing SOS data backup software.

After installation, the tool will discover SQL Server installs and offer it to admins as a backup target.

Recently SOS announced much the same thing for Microsoft Exchange.

One pitch to partners and IT is cost. The company doesn’t charge extra for individual devices, and therefore partners can back up as much SQL Server, PCs, file servers and Macs as well as mobile endpoints as they want.

 “Our partners are busy. They don't always have time to forecast or count all of the devices within a business. Adding integrated SQL Server backup for an unlimited number of servers is another way we can support our partners' businesses. We want them to grow without being burdened by a pricing schedule that was created for accountants, not IT consultants,” said Ken Shaw, CEO of Infrascale, which is the parent company of SOS.

SOS Goes Private

SOS owner Infrascale recently announced a version of its SOS Backup for hosted or managed private clouds.

SOS Backup is now offered in a white label, on-premises basis so MSPs can basically sell it as their own.

The company says partners, including MSPs, have been asking for this option. And so have IT clients. In fact, Infrascale pointed to IDC research indicating that more than half of IT pros surveyed believe that hosted private clouds are more secure that publicly hosted clouds, a view that certainly makes intuitive and perhaps obvious sense.

In the backup space, this privatization runs contrary to the direction much of the industry is running in. The Holy Grail of today’s backup is hybrid cloud or disk to disk to cloud (d2d2c). Here the standard in-house backup to disk still takes place, but the second tier, the real safety net, is in the cloud. This is particularly attractive for SMBs who save on storage infrastructure and IT management time and expense as the cloud provider takes full care of the secondary backup.

But large shops are more wary, and perhaps spooked by well-publicized data breaches.

In the Beginning

Like the original Compaq Computer (remember that sweet but big portable?), Infrascale designed its cloud platform on a napkin. Instead of the early 80’s as with Compaq, Infrascale sketched its vision 8 years ago in a Thai restaurant.

“The idea we drew out that night was for a distributed file and document management system made up of millions of heterogeneous end-points or "leaf" nodes (our users), connected to hundreds of distributed compute and storage servers (our "grid"), all controlled by a command-and-control system that sat at the middle of the network (the Infrascale application itself),” the company explained. “Imagine a logically central node, surrounded by hundreds of server nodes, surrounded by millions of end-points that leverage those server nodes.”

That same “semi-intelligent grid” architecture is what the company still uses across its 11 data centers.




Edited by Rory J. Thompson
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