Salesforce Backup Service Returns, Preempting AvePoint CRM Protection Release

AvePoint is expanding beyond its primary focus of managing Microsoft applications and services, with its new Salesforce backup solution. The release of AvePoint’s Salesforce Cloud Backup comes a month after Salesforce revived the backup offering it retired.

After retiring its Data Recovery Service last summer, Salesforce decided it was a mistake and brought it back last month. The about-face move seemingly was unexpected by backup vendors that announced Salesforce protection to their portfolios last year. AvePoint, Commvault’s Metallic unit and NetApp were among them.

The reason Salesforce cited for retiring its Data Recovery Service last year was that few customers were using it. Salesforce said it planned to instead expand its focus on enabling third-party backup providers; hence, now, the Salesforce backup service is back.

Salesforce’s Josh Alexander

“We have reversed our decision to end our Data Recovery Service, effective immediately,” according to the announcement by Josh Alexander, who oversees the platform strategy at Salesforce. “If you previously relied on this functionality as your fail-safe and/or backup and restore strategy, you can continue to do so.”

Although few customers used it, they liked knowing it was there in case of an emergency, Salesforce said it discovered. Nevertheless, Alexander said Salesforce is standing by its plan to boost support for third-party backup vendors.

“The Salesforce AppExchange is home to a rich partner ecosystem that provides robust backup and restore solutions for customers today,” Alexander noted.

Salesforce Plans to Upgrade Backup Service

Besides bringing back the Data Recovery Service, Alexander revealed that Salesforce also will upgrade the solution. The company said it is building the backup and restore services natively on its platform.

“We’ve co-designed these services with customers, and we expect to deliver the performance, speed and scale that you’ve come to expect from the Salesforce platform while continuing to provide additional ways to innovate and extend these capabilities through our vibrant ecosystem,” Alexander said.

Salesforce will start piloting the upgraded service this summer, Alexander noted.

Matthew Hutchison, marketing VP at Own Backup, a longtime provider of Salesforce data recovery services, responded with a warning.

OwnBackup’s Matthew Hutchinson

“While the service is better than having no recovery options at all and may provide some peace of mind, it has several notable limitations,” he wrote in a post responding to Salesforce’s decision.

AvePoint’s new channel chief, Jason Beal, offered a more optimistic view.

“We anticipate that if anything, the impact will be largely positive,” Beal told Channel Futures. “The more Salesforce does to educate their customer base on the need for backing up their data, the more customers will evaluate partners like AvePoint that can extend that functionality even further.”

Indeed, Beal said that has been the case with Microsoft, which also offers its own backup services. Like its tools for specific Microsoft solutions, Beal said AvePoint can provide backup services not available with the Salesforce offering.

AvePoint’s Jason Beal

“It’s very difficult to cost effectively build and maintain a backup solution that meets the needs of every single type of organization,” Beal said. “The typical product model for large SaaS providers is to cover 80% of the key use cases and have partners build the last mile.”

AvePoint Salesforce Cloud Backup

AvePoint emphasized some of those added features, which include:

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Designed for Managed Service Providers (MSPs)

Beal said MSPs can resell AvePoint’s Salesforce Cloud Backup, emphasizing it’s based on the same technology for protecting Microsoft data.

“They can manage multiple tenants,” he said. “This as a great opportunity for our existing MSPs.”

While only a few MSPs have been evaluating the Salesforce backup solution so far, Beal added there are thousands of MSPs who use AvePoint to protect Microsoft 365, Office 365, Azure and Dynamics 365 data.

Many Microsoft shops also have Salesforce users, Beal added.

“Our MSPs have a lot of customers who are running Office 365 and may be tapping into Azure all the time; they’re also running Salesforce.com,” he said.

Among them is Rojoli Services, an MSP in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. Rojoli has provided managed backups of Office 365 services using AvePoint for several years, according to its COO, David Huseonica.

“When we learned that they were getting into the Salesforce space, we were quite excited because many of our clients not only use Office 365, but also use Salesforce,” Huseonica told Channel Futures. “It’s a great match for us to start representing the Salesforce backup solution for our customers.”

The new Salesforce Cloud Backup is available for MSPs to resell and manage in 36 countries and via 58 distributor app marketplaces. Among them are Tech Data’s StreamOne Solutions Store, Ingram Micro Cloud marketplace, Synnex Stellr marketplace and Vuzion CORE.