Altaro has released a new edition of its virtual machine backup solution for Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware.
Available immediately, version 7 of the Maltese vendor’s VM Backup product, which is tailored to the needs of companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, comes with inline deduplication functionality, a new boot from backup feature, and support for Windows Server 2016.
According to Altaro, the deduplication functionality conserves bandwidth and accelerates backups by transferring changed data only, while a sophisticated underlying algorithm enables the system to achieve significantly higher compression ratios than competing products. During internal tests, the company says, 70 customers needed just 120 TB of disk space to protect 450 TB of virtual machine data.
The new boot from backup feature enables users to reboot virtual machines directly from the backup drive during service interruptions.
“[It] effectively reduces RTOs from hours to minutes,” says Altaro CEO David Vella.
VM Backup version 7 is priced at 3 different levels, starting with a free edition that protects up to two virtual machines per host server and offers basic functionality only.
“It’s a pure marketing play,” Vella states. “We believe when someone tries our product, the product sells itself.”
The standard edition of the product offers significantly more features and safeguards up to 5 virtual machines on one host for $515. The unlimited edition, which costs $625, comes with comprehensive functionality and no upper limit on protected virtual machines.
Unlike most comparable offerings, VM Backup is priced on a per-host rather than per-socket basis, resulting in what Altaro says are savings of 50 percent or more.
“With all our competing products, you’re literally looking at 4 times, 5 times, the price in some cases,” says Stephen Chetcuti Bonavita, Altaro’s co-founder and vice president of sales and marketing.
The company positions VM Backup as a complement to conventional BDR solutions specifically for use with virtual machines, and advises partners to include it as a standard element in all of their service bundles.
“We become a no-brainer solution that they just add to their portfolio,” Chetcuti Bonavita says. “Every one of their customers needs backup, and every one of their customers is going to have some virtualized environment.”
Though the system doesn’t integrate with RMM or PSA solutions at present, Altaro plans to add integration with the ConnectWise Automate RMM solution (formerly known as LabTech) from Tampa, Fla.-based ConnectWise within the next 3 weeks. Integration with the MSP N-central RMM platform from Durham, N.C.-based SolarWinds MSP is in the works as well.
Altaro was a 4-person startup with a consumer backup solution when it opened its doors in 2009. Managing the company’s IT infrastructure was one of Vella’s responsibilities at the time, and VM Backup’s origins lie in the difficulties he had finding a suitable tool for protecting virtual machines.
“I found no solution that was easy to use or that didn’t cost thousands of dollars,” he recalls. “That was our ‘aha’ moment.”
The first edition of VM Backup, which protected Hyper-V machines only, reached market in 2012. Support for VMware arrived in 2015.
Last year, meanwhile, Altaro began a concerted channel recruitment push. The company currently has 6,000 partners worldwide serving over 30,000 customers. 1,300 of its resellers are in the U.S., with another 30 to 40 joining them each month.
At present, about 60 percent of VM Backup sales in the U.S. are through the channel. Altaro is working toward becoming channel-only, however.
“We’re chipping away at that,” Chetcuti Bonavita says. “Our strategy has always been around the channel.”
The company’s partner program has three levels. The bronze, or entry, level pays 15 percent margins. Resellers who place as few as 5 orders in a 12-month period qualify for the silver tier, where they receive 25 percent margins. The gold tier pays further elevated margins and offers the most extensive lead sharing opportunities as well.
MSPs have had a partner program of their own since last September. Members receive access to a cloud-based administration system they can use to manage all of their customer deployments through one interface, as well as $5 per VM per month subscription pricing (with a 10 VM minimum) that aligns with the monthly fees they charge clients.
According to Chetcuti Bonavita, the program gains about 50 new MSPs every month.
