What kind of relationships do you have with your cloud vendors? Should they know and understand your business well enough to provide the level of service and support that your organization needs? Or, are you just another faceless name identified by a ten digit account code and a monthly invoice?
Through the course of conducting echopath business, I have developed relationships with our core group of vendors that are vital to our continued success. What do I exactly mean by that? I don’t necessarily mean that I’m inviting Ken, Tracy, Dave, or Kelly (to name a few) over to the house for some steaks and beers, although it would be a fun. I mean that they have become trusted advisors to our business in their specific areas of expertise. They became trusted advisors because we developed a relationship where they understand my business needs and as a result can best serve those needs when called upon.
Treat Others As You Wish To Be Treated
I commonly talk to potential clients about our “co-managed” approach to data protection services. We protect and recover data for clients constantly, so the better we learn how our client’s businesses operate directly corresponds to echopath’s ability to protect them better. I frequently find prospects in the shopping phase who put most emphasis on the feature and benefits of the data protection software product and glaze over the vendor who is offering it. News Flash!!…A very large factor of success in data protection is in how the solution is deployed and operated.
Choosing a Data Protection Vendor
Initially, I would recommend reading our white paper on a similar subject: 7 Questions To Ask Your Backup Solution Provider. In addition to the technical aspects of your specific data protection challenges, I would review potential backup vendors for the following items:
1. Are they knowledgeable on more than just how their software works?
Data protection jobs typically fail due to operating system or user specific issues. A backup vendor who quickly directs you to Microsoft when the first hint of an error code appears, is probably going to cost you much more in internal support costs than their solution costs in the first place. Expecting a vendor to be able to troubleshoot standard operating system issues in conjunction with understanding how their own backup software product works isn’t out of the question.
2. Make a judgment on how they will service you by how they sell to you.
You can actually determine a lot about a potential vendor by paying attention to them during the sales process. Ask them a few questions that you know they will most likely not know, nor would expect them to know. See how they go about getting you the answer. If you can tell they are just pulling something out of thin air in order to make you think they are all knowing, then what does that say about how they are going treat you when you really do bring an issue to them.
3. Company size isn’t the best prediction of support capability.
Depth is nice when you are jumping from the high dive, but isn’t necessarily a benefit when only jumping onto an inner tube in the lazy river. Hopefully you will take a lot more lazy river rides than 10m jumps when it comes to your data protection. Unless you are a high dive thrill seeker, then like me you probably prefer quicker access to the pool, less wait time between rides and a clear speaking, friendly face to greet you than having access to the depth that you’ll never use or need. By the way, if I really need to get my high dive needs met, then that is where Tier 3 support with my software vendor comes into play.
If data protection is more than just a check box to your organization, then take the time to evaluate what kind of relationship you want to have with your data protection vendor. Data protection costs the most when you’ve been backing up data that can’t be restored when it’s needed. Find a backup vendor that cares to know more about your organization than just your billing information and package selection. If your data is worth protecting, then find a vendor that will work with you to implement a data protection solution that ensures recovery.