Quorum, one of the new hybrid cloud and on-premises backup and disaster recovery specialist firms, is in the market for SMB resellers. Sales for the San Jose, Calif.-based company are about 90 percent through the channel, and the company believes the merits of its hybrid backup solution will compel VARs and MSPs to sign on.
Quorum offers cloud backup service for Windows Server (2003 and 2008, 32- and 64-bit versions), Windows Small Business Server, and RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.6/5.8. The company’s onQ on-premises backup appliance, based on Dell hardware, provides fast local file restoration and acts as the gateway to the One-Click Recovery Offsite Cloud back end. Transmissions to the cloud are through a 128-bit AES encrypted session behind a 256-bit AES VPN tunnel that is connected directly from the on-premises appliance to the cloud.
Rather than typical file-based backup services, Quorum focuses on fast recovery by making scheduled server image snapshots as often as every 15 minutes. Those server images are uploaded to the Remote Site onQ Cloud, where virtualized servers await. Server failover tests, long and painful with tape-based backup systems, take only minutes with Quorum.
“Customers can test their server images anytime,” says Larry Lang, Quorum’s CEO. “We spin up a virtual clone, booting up the server on-site and off-site, and notify the customers.” There are no test fees.
Quorum carefully focuses on backup and disaster recovery, rather than promising full business continuity services, says Lang. “Continuity brings up issues of personnel notification and bringing in a trailer full of servers,” he says. “We focus on the server and provide the backup and disaster recovery components for their business continuity planning.”
The onQ on-site appliance comes with software preloaded. “We could offer a virtual server instance, but that might lead to a situation where a customer installs the backup software on the server they’re trying to protect,” says Lang. “And with Dell’s service, if we have a hardware failure, it will be replaced within hours.”
Aiming at market segments that want fast recovery but can’t afford a redundant data center, Quorum serves, for example, regional rather than national banks. “The FDIC auditors love our fast recovery process in the cloud,” says Lang.
Quorum’s Ready-to-Run Virtual Recovery Nodes on the on-premises appliances provide speedy recovery in case of serious issues or basic mistakes. “One client did a firmware upgrade on a customer’s blade servers, causing a glitch in the temperature sensors. Servers shut down randomly, so the MSP failed the servers over to the Quorum system,” says Lang. “They ran it for three or four weeks while they figured out the firmware issue. What could have been a serious uptime issue with their customer turned into the bank understanding their ability to keep their systems up and running after a problem.”
PROGRAM FEATURES
The company’s partner offering features a deal-registration program, sales-oriented training and materials, technical training, discounted demo units, and a partner certification program. Other benefits include lead generation, jointly branded public relations materials and case studies, plus a partner portal. VARs and MSPs can join as Quorum partners at various levels, depending on the size of their organization, its operational capabilities, and market reach.
Quorum has about 35 current resellers, mostly in the United States and Canada, but with a few others around the world. “When customers come to us, we ask which resellers they typically work with, and we meet with those resellers to let them handle the business,” says Lang. “About two-thirds [of them] start selling systems to their other clients.”
Concludes Lang: “I tell new partners they can keep their traditional Symantec BackupExec, but restore in minutes with us rather than hours and days with tape – and that their customers can’t afford a replicated data center, but they do want the benefits of fast recovery.”
Visit www.quorum.net for more information.
