The Christchurch earthquake was a devastating disaster. Billions of dollars worth of damage to the garden city meant chaos for the many following weeks. 7 years on, many of the effects of the earthquake linger on, whilst the memories still haunt. I remember catching up with Ron Pher, our (Storagecraft pre-sales consultant at the time), as we pondered the consequence of large scale data loss. Data of course is pivotal to the continued functioning of any organisation and a lack of access to that core information was unthinkable. On the other side of a round of engagements in Auckland, we quickly discovered that the need to protect from this loss was a sentiment shared by partners across the country, no one was left feeling immune. We started SOS (Sofsol Off-site Storage) then as a need to meet that requirement. Partners told us, they wanted the ability to take that important information and put it in a place that allowed them peace of mind; security in knowing it was safe if disaster was to ever strike again. With StorageCraft being our core backup solution set it meant that it was easy to quickly complete the two sides of the design; we had the technology to snapshot that data and now we had the ability to secure it safely in New Zealand. In time, what started as an optional additional platform, became a compulsory add-on to partners across the country, not just those in areas where natural disasters were common but also to mitigate simple human error and plaguing or potential technology faults. Partners understood the need and their customers, drove the want.
Almost 7 years on, Sofsol Off-site Storage (or SOS as it became so aptly named) has seen itself through many changes. As technology advanced, our ability to grow the product increased, adding in more advanced reporting, failover, virtualization and most importantly scalability – looking after the data of some of the countries biggest consumers in their vertical.
As evolution was driven by need, the need to change has come upon us again, as we usher in a new generation of S.O.S built around a new platform, with a new provider at a price point we think you won’t want to ignore. SOS (Sofsol Off-site Storage) v2 sticks to its same core principal – providing a New Zealand platform to backup your ShadowProtect images to, that can be relied on when needed for recovery – but adds a roadmap as bright as you can imagine, with lots of new possibilities, security and additional ‘peace of mind’ that cements it into any business continuity and disaster recovery plan that you can assemble.
SOS V2, is still sold in the model you will already be familiar with, priced per TB of Storage, but this time around it retails for just $60 per 1TB. As always, this is a cost to you the reseller which you can divide up amongst your customers as much as you see fit. The way the platform is built means it steps your recovery plan into the layer of longer term data archival. In addition, StorageCraft’s next generation of ImageManager will also allow you to directly replicate your image set to the platform, without having to spend time with additional configurations.
My team and I are working hard behind the scenes to allow you to bring this to your partners as soon as you can. One of the ways to help you facilitate this cost into your customers disaster recovery plans is via bundles with the StorageCraft MSP program. Stay tuned for this release, as just another way to build cost effective disaster recovery.
We know this will be the game changer you have been waiting for; contact us today to find out more.
Jason Gass – Sales Manager
Phone: 0-9-306 0450, E-mail: Jason@sofsol.co.nz
