StorageCraft has shipped the OneXafe Solo 300, a compact appliance designed to serve as a simple, flexible, and affordable disaster recovery platform for businesses toward the smaller end of the SMB spectrum.
Unveiled last July and in beta testing since then, the system uses StorageCraft’s ShadowXafe BDR software to stream data from servers, PCs, and virtual machines to the vendor’s own cloud. In the event of a system failure, StorageCraft says, users can boot an online virtual recovery environment within milliseconds.
Installation of the device is a “plug and play” process, according to Shridar Subramanian, StorageCraft’s vice president of product management and marketing. Once connected to the network, he says, the unit automatically discovers devices and notifies the end user’s MSP that it’s been activated. Administrators can then remotely identify which endpoints should be protected, establish a backup schedule and retention policy, and specify a replication target.
“That’s it,” Subramanian says. “We wanted to make this very simple and very intuitive and easy to use.”
The new system is also a timely option at present, he continues, for channel pros in areas subject to coronavirus-related “stay-at-home” orders who want to minimize or eliminate site visits. “It can be shipped to the customer’s office, where all it takes is just plugging it in, connecting it to the network, and just walking out of there,” Subramanian says, adding that the process is simple enough for end users to complete on their own.
MSPs can manage the device from offsite as well through StorageCraft’s OneSystem administration console. That will help them boost profitability even after the COVID-19 crisis has passed, according to Andy Zollo, StorageCraft’s recently appointed head of global sales.
“Every time you send an engineer out to do an install, it costs them money,” he notes.
The product’s ease of deployment, combined with its compact 4.53 x 4.53 x 1.93 in. chassis, suits it for use in remote or branch offices, as well as at locations like retail outlets, Zollo says. “The unit could just be shipped in there, plugged into the point of sale systems, and bang, you’re backing up.”
The OneXafe Solo is designed to be a versatile solution as well, according to Subramanian. The system supports both physical and virtual machines in agent-based and agentless deployments. Recovery can be physical to physical, physical to virtual, virtual to virtual, or virtual to physical. Businesses that wish to can also store backups locally on a USB-connected storage drive, a NAS array, or a separately purchased HDD or SSD fitted into the system’s internal 2.5-in. drive bay. Maximum onboard storage capacity is 4TB.
The product offers built-in integration with the ConnectWise Manage PSA system for license management, invoicing, and reporting. StorageCraft plans to add support for more PSA solutions in the future. “We are going through the process of prioritizing based on what our current partners and new partners are using,” Subramanian says.
Subscription-based pricing starts at $99 a month for the first machine the unit protects and $79 a month for each additional one. 1TB of storage in the StorageCraft cloud is included in that rate for each of those machines. Companies that need more capacity can add it for a supplemental fee.
“It’s completely aligned with the way MSPs do business in that when we ship the machines out, there is nothing upfront that the customers have to pay,” Subramanian says.
According to Zollo, adding the OneXafe Solo to StorageCraft’s OneXafe portfolio extends a converged storage and data protection platform originally aimed at midsize businesses into smaller environments, rounding out StorageCraft’s array of SMB offerings.
“There’s been a hole in the customers, perhaps, at the real ‘S’ end of SMB that it’s not been economically viable for us to address before,” he says.
