BDR Appliance Maintenance 101 for Datto Partners

Maintaining backup and disaster recovery (BDR) appliances is a task that dovetails well with managed service providers (MSPs) core mission of monitoring and managing customer infrastructures. But with the summer around the corner, MSPmentor wanted to find out how MSPs could simplify the process. So we reached out to disaster recovery (DR) and intelligent business continuity (IBC) solutions vendor Datto for some answers. How can MSPs leveraging Datto appliances efficiently maintain them? We'll reveal the answer.

Datto Sales Engineer Dan Ciccone spoke briefly via email with MSPmentor to provide us with a few tips and tricks from the inside, pointing out the obvious to MSPs up front.

"The best way to maintain your Datto appliance is to keep a close eye on what’s happening with each device in your fleet," he said.

He did, however, offer the following maintenance benefits for MSPs offering Datto appliances to customers, revealing how the company's centralized management console in the partner portal can be an effective way to maintain appliances:

Ensure that the last backup for each device was successful;

Verify that backups were recorded and can launch into virtual machines. This can be done through a screenshot verification feature that is visible in the management console;

Access any device in your fleet remotely to alleviate any system issues at an end user's location; and

Ping yourself with device alerts. If there's an issue with hardware, you'll receive a text message or an email regarding the error.

Instead of waiting for something to happen, be proactive by monitoring and maintaining your Datto appliances. Access your centralized management console to leverage the company's tool for appliance maintenance. Which features do you utilize the most?