Installation Review: VAR Lands Hosted Data Backup Solution For A National Marketing Firm

By Chris MacKinnon, Business Solutions magazine.

If you talk to Glen Miller for any length of time, you quickly realize how much he knows about data backup. He'll also tell you how one of his client's data is well protected and is saving the company money at the same time. As the IT manager and senior network administrator with Hartelco, a VAR specializing in home and business telecommunications, Miller saw the need for a secure data backup solution for Beck AG, an agricultural advertising and marketing company with employees, contractors, and project managers across the entire United States.

A Beck AG employee heard about Hartelco through local advertising, and when she was having trouble with her laptop, she contacted the company for assistance. But it turned out that Beck AG needed a better backup solution as well. Prior to meeting Miller, Beck AG used a variety of other online backup solutions including Mozy, Carbonite, and Geek Squad. In Miller's opinion, Beck AG is a non-IT structured company that did not have access to a dedicated IT staff. And because it is a dispersed organization, data was clustered across many Beck AG computers that were using different backup systems.

Miller says after speaking with the owner and hearing about the problem, he designed an online backup solution using VaultLogix's Internet Vault online data backup service to meet the client's needs.

According to Miller, installing the VaultLogix software solution was simple, but it did require a basic knowledge of networking and administrativde-level access to each PC.

For the type of installation described here, Hartelco charges clients about $4 per GB, per month. Miller says this rate is very competitive. Hartelco purchases a block of space from VaultLogix and then resells the space to their customers.

Miller says Beck AG has the reach within the agricultural market to put in a good word for Hartelco for potential future business. Beck AG is in the middle of the United States "corn belt" and is constantly advertising and marketing in the agricultural arena.