"We're all working in an IT atmosphere that's demanding, 'Do more with less'," said Grant Geyer, VP of Managed Services at Symantec, when I spoke to him yesterday. "We're dealing with the specters of extreme cost control and outsourcing. Budgets are shrinking, and so are workforces."
And yet today’s IT organizations are required to manage enterprise data-protection solutions that meet demanding service level agreements (SLAs) and data-recovery objectives—regardless of budgets and resources. The growing complexity and cost of enterprise data protection operations, combined with a shortage of qualified personnel, have compounded the challenge of effectively managing these critical environments on an ongoing basis.
Symantec Managed Backup Services enable enterprises to reduce operational costs, manage risks, and meet their SLAs with confidence—all by outsourcing their key backup and recovery functions to Symantec’s data-protection experts.
Managed Backup Services provide comprehensive management of your backup and recovery operations under strict SLAs allowing you to focus on your core business priorities while retaining ownership of your backup technology. Geyer said, "There are three tiers of management support: The Silver tier is 8 hours a day, 7 days a week; the Gold tier is 16 hours a day, 7 days a week; and the Platinum tier is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
The Symantec Managed Backup Service begins with an initial assessment of your current backup environment to provide recommendations for optimization of your backup operations and infrastructure and to determine your ROI for moving to a managed service. A transition process and plan is subsequently developed specific to your existing people, processes, and technology. The service is then run according to agreed SLAs including backup and recovery success rates. And because the data stays on your assets in your data centers, there is no ‘lock-in’ agreement impacting recovery of your data in the long-term.
Symantec Managed Backup Services combine local management—on-site or off-site—with remote round-the-clock monitoring, incident management, performance of restore requests, planning and optimization assistance, and regular reporting. Incidents are addressed in a timely manner using your existing storage-management queue with supplemental root-cause analysis performed on high-impact problems. Symantec’s local technical expert plans and optimizes operations from change-management monitoring to patch management, domain client configuration alterations, and storage-capacity forecasting. Day-to-day operations are supervised by your Service Delivery Manager, who also provides a centralized and transparent view of your operations through daily and monthly reports summarizing SLAs, storage capacity, and key issues identified during the period.
"Managed Backup Services promises 15-20 percent cost savings for the average enterprise," said Geyer. "The sweet spot is the large enterprise, but the solution scales nicely to SMBs."
For more information, check out the Managed Backup Services page at the Symantec website
