Should MSPs Include BDR in Managed Services Offerings?

Should managed services providers (MSPs) push data backup and disaster recovery (BDR) and business continuity (BC) planning to customers from the beginning or pitch to them after the ball is rolling?

“Backup and business continuity is a primary part of our IT solutions portfolio for our clients,” Strata Information Technology, Inc. President Pete Robbins told MSPmentor in an interview. “When we talk to any prospective MSP client, disaster recovery (DR) planning is very important.”

MSPs can provide value to customers by “making sure they have systems up and running and in the event of a hardware issue,” Robbin said, pointing out that “there is no faster way to make sure systems are back online than with a BDR.”

Many customers do not “understand what a BDR is or what BC or DR is,” Robbins said. At the very most, customers typically only understand the need to back up their data, he added.

“When discussing a disaster recovery plan, an explanation of RTO, recovery time objective and RPO, recovery point objective are very important terms to convey,” Robbins said.

Robbins concluded that customers leveraging just backup “have a point from which to recover from, but not necessarily in a time frame that is conducive for their business.

Robbins last spoke with MSPmentor back in December 2013 on common image-based myths from customers, and how he counters their worries.