Symantec Rolls Out Two Storage SaaS Offerings
Symantec, Cupertino, Calif., on Tuesday said it is making its new Symantec Protection Network, which provides on-line data backup and recovery, available to small and midsized businesses in one of two ways.
The first is Symantec Online Backup, which is a stand-alone service for backing up data to a secure remote location over the Internet, said Jeff Hausman, vice president and general manager of the Symantec Protection Network.
The second is Symantec Online Storage for Backup Exec, an on-line data protection service integrated with Backup Exec 12, a new version of that application. Customers can manage their on-line storage directly from Symantec Online Storage for Backup Exec using a single interface, Hausman said.
Symantec is targeting small- and mid-sized businesses that want an easy-to-manage, secure way to back data up to and restore from an off-site location, and the solution providers who serve such customers, Hausman said.
"Our partners now become an MSP for their customers," he said. "They can help customers do the their backups and test them."
Solution providers working with Symantec's new SaaS offerings can offer customers always-on protection, and help them decide what information needs to be protected, Hausman said. They can also offer customers ways to easily recover data and roll back to previous versions of the data, he said.
During this time, customers keep control of their data. "They keep their own encryption keys, or they can put those keys with a third-party escrow service," he said. "So the data is safe, in multiple locations, and secure."
Symantec's SaaS storage offerings allow customers to keep rolling windows of data, and keep data available on-line for as few as 30 days or as long as seven years, Hausman said.
Symantec Online Backup is available on a monthly or annual subscription basis starting at $25 per month for 5 Gbytes. Pricing for Symantec Online Storage for Backup Exec starts at $38 per month for 10 Gbytes. Hausman said the difference comes from solution provider feedback that customers who use Backup Exec tend to have larger data sets.
The services will be available starting Tuesday. Customers who sign up by April 30 get the first three months free of charge.
Solution provider margins were not disclosed, but they are "healthy," said Randy Cochran, vice president of channel sales for the Americas at Symantec.
By offering the service, solution providers can mine existing customers, especially those who work with Backup Exec.
Sales of the services count towards the bonus rebates that solution providers can qualify for based on beating their quotas under Symantec's ASPIRE program for registered partners, Cochran said.