This week we launched our all-new, highly sophisticated and flashy video for the promotion of the BackupAgent Online Backup Service and its Client. Our Partners can rebrand the video and use it to promote their own online backup service. Logo, colors and contact details can be modified to reach optimal rebranding. Please enjoy this 5 minute run-through of our Promotional video (in a 'BackupAgent skin'):


As a Partner of BackupAgent, or as one of their resellers, you can now obtain your own re-branded copy of this movie. It is THE way to enthuse your customers for purchasing your Online Backup Service. Please contact your Partner Account Manager if you are interested in your own version of this movie.

I have just completed an information document which shows how to request, install and test an SSL certificate. This certificate is important to companies who sell our backup service to securely backup and restore (business) data, as well as access their website.

BackupAgent requires a certified SSL connection between its clients and servers. Certificates that serve this purpose can only be purchased at Certificate Authorities. In the past, some of our partners tried to use self-signed certificates, but this is not secure. The basic idea behind SSL is that some authority grants a combination of public and private keys, which prevents hackers from posing as a company that provides online backup services.

A user can be certain he or she connects to a server that is owned by the company he or she does business with. This can only be true if some independent authority matches a private request of that company with a unique public key based on the master key of the CA. This is basis for PKI. Some technicians might argue that there is no technical difference between a self-signed certificate and one of a CA. Although this is true, I think they underestimate the legal role of CA’s which provides more certainty that a company is legitimate. The CA’s have to qualify to stringent legal standards to obtain their status. That’s why BackupAgent only works with official SSL certificates.

Last week one of our partners was in urgent need of support since one of his clients was recovering from an apocalyptic disaster. Because of the nature of business it was crystal clear that the customer would go bankrupt if critical data could not be recovered. We had to make sure all data was restored in a consistent state.

The partner addressed our tech support, because not all data seemed to be restored correctly. After some hours of thorough analysis of the data by our CTO and me, we discovered that the partner apparently was using the wrong encryption key. This rang a bell at the side of the partner and after checking their administration they retrieved the correct encryption key for restoring. Now all relevant data was restored correctly and the customer was back in business.

The example shows that in some cases good software must be complemented by adequate and responsive support. The customer was under great pressure to get back to business within a reasonable timeframe. This - yet another - satisfied customer also shows that our partner model allows us to prevent bankruptcy in case of data loss.

BackupAgent is conquering the Nordics. We have recently closed deals with distributor SmartHost and system integrator Pulsen. Although they have just started, SmartHost is already very successful and has signed up the first resellers that are selling BackupAgent actively to their customers. An example can be found below.




Although my knowledge of the Swedish language is not what it used to be :-), I have to mention that this looks pretty slick. The upcoming Winter of ’08-’09 will be a very cold one in Scandinavia. For our Partner Managers of the Nordic region, who will be spending quite some time visiting local partners, I advise them to take a look at these useful tips...

I visited Pulsen, a Swedish company, two weeks ago in a joint effort to roll-out their online backup service based on BackupAgent. Pulsen, amongst many hosters, ISP’s and Telco’s, use the Microsoft Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) platform to offer service such as Hosted Exchange. HMC also offers an open provisioning platform which allows services like BackupAgent to be offered to customers in a similar fashion as the customer consumes Hosted Exchange.

BackupAgent offers a very short time-to-market for hosters that already invested in an HMC platform, since we reuse the complete infrastructure which they already built and invested in. Because of this, hosters can shorten their return-on-investment regarding HMC because they can offer an additional service using the existing platform.

Interesting effect of platforms like HMC is that it changes the perspective for hosters regarding the launch of new services. Core competences and requirements regarding provisioning and monitoring are already in place, which lowers risks, implementation times and technical effort to enable a new service. As long as an ISV like BackupAgent supports the platform, the hoster can focus most of its efforts on the commercial proposition and marketing.

Some BackupAgent partners I spoke fear the upcoming of Microsoft as a service provider. Personally, I think that only a limited part of the market can be served by Microsoft in this respect. The way I see it, they encourage the hosting community to differentiate, instead of entering competition based on price. Microsoft offers hosted services to enforce a shift in paradigm in the price-focused, volume-driven hosting companies. They challenge companies to gain new competences, both technically and commercially. Since I’ve seen how some hosters are struggling with this theme, I think it will lead to a more mature hosting community with products and services that have a higher added-value for the customer.