Perimeter eSecurity Adds Online Storage To Its Services Offerings
Perimeter eSecurity has been offering security, managed services, and managed LAN and WAN services as part of its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings for several years, with about 80 percent of its business coming from customers with under 500 people, said Doug Howard, chief strategy officer for the Milford, Conn.-based company.
Howard is also president of USA.net, a hosted Exchange provider acquired by Perimeter eSecurity last year.
This week saw Perimeter eSecurity add remote data backup and recovery as a service, based primarily on the company's own proprietary technology, Howard said. It lets customers back up their operating system, their system configuration, and their data or content.
The backups can be scheduled to happen at any time depending on customers' schedule, and can be set for incremental, part, or full backups, Howard said. For instance, they could back up a PC's operating system once per month, but files once per day, he said.
All files are encrypted locally before being backed up, while it is being transmitted offsite, and while it is stored offsite, with the encryption keys in the hands of the users and their administrators, Howard said. The data is backed up to one of four primary data centers in the U.S., including one owned by the company and three hosted in co-location centers. "Each customer's data is on at least two data centers for redundancy," he said.
About 30 percent of Perimeter eSecurity's business comes from solution providers, a figure that Howard said is growing quickly to reach up to 50 percent by the end of this year. Solution providers can provide the service with their own brand or with the Perimeter eSecurity brand, he said.
Perimeter eSecurity has proven to be a channel-friendly company to DATACORP, a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based solution provider.
"They've really embraced the channel," said Hugo Perez, managing partner at DATACORP. "Some folks will talk channel, but behave otherwise. Perimeter eSecurity has been very helpful. They're almost like an extension to my team. Sometimes they're even more responsive than my own staff, which is kinda sad."
DATACORP has recently added online data protection to its product line card because of a growing need among customers for alternatives to tape.
"A lot of customers have mandated compliance rules," he said. "So I see a trend where backup to tape is going to go away. Encryption of tape isn't easy, and it can be expensive. And tapes can walk away, either innocently or otherwise."
For the most part, DATACORP prefers to use the Perimeter eSecurity brand for its services, with only a small part of its services going out with the DATACORP name, Perez said. "I want customers to know that I'm partnering on this," he said. "And it's well received that way."