As the need for on-site and cloud backup and disaster recovery (BDR) offerings become more important to Canadian businesses, managed service providers here have another channel-focused company to consider in Saskatoon-based Datto Canada.
Modest Mycyk, now Datto Canada’s CEO, had been licensing Norwalk, Conn.-based Datto Inc.’s technology and managing data in Canada for about two years. It wasn’t until late 2011 that plans for an entire Canadian operation with a 100 per cent channel model for the company were solidified.
Datto’s flagship business continuity product, SIRIS, provides “instant virtualization,” with an on site hardware appliance and agents on the server, as well as backup to the Datto Secure Cloud.
The company uses what it calls “inverse chain technology,” where data is stored in vmdk format on the local device, which means no conversion process is necessary to virtualize failed servers, workstations or desktops.
“We’re aggressively growing this year,” said Marlene Mullowney, Datto Canada’s account executive in Ottawa. She said the growth rate is at 10 to 15 per cent per month.
Datto has an authorized reseller program with silver, gold and platinum tiers, targeted at MSPs looking to build recurring revenue streams. Similar to many partner programs, Datto’s offers sales and marketing materials and technical material, as well as co-sales training, but the program is free to join. Eventually, the company will introduce specializations as well.
Apart from the technology and partner program, data hosted in Canada has been one selling point. “I talk to partners all the time, MSPs, who say they have clients that they have to turn away because they’re pushing their data, typically to the U.S., and there’s really no options for them,” she said.
The company currently has one primary data centre in Saskatoon, with another regional centre elsewhere in Saskatchewan. “Personally, I have much more faith in the prairies being a stable environment to be in more so than some of our coastal areas like Vancouver,” Mycyk said, though the company is now looking at Toronto as a possible location for a daughter data centre.
For Nick Bhasin, president of Toronto-based MSP ABS Information Systems Inc., having data hosted here was an important distinction.“It actually, for a lot of customers, is becoming more and more important, not only just by preference, but due to compliance and regulation issues,” he said. “They just can’t send their data to the U.S.”
