MSP TriaTech Backs Up 12 TB of Customer Data, Expands Service Offerings with AvePoint Cloud Backup
Success Highlights
Customer Location Borlänge, Sweden
Industry Information Technology
Platform Microsoft 365
TriaTech is a managed service provider (MSP) that helps Swedish companies deploy and leverage Microsoft 365 solutions to advance their business goals.
Founded in 2006 by three IT consultants — a number that inspired the “TriaTech” name — the organization now employs 17 people and serves about 400 customers. The company is a longtime Microsoft Gold Partner.
Critical Needs
- Holistic M365 offering that enables extended data protection and backup
- Quick and easy restore
- Educate customers about backup
- Ability to backup advanced workloads in Microsoft Teams
The Challenge
At TriaTech, client relationships go far beyond the purchase and setup of new technology.
“We want our customers to take care of their investment,” said Mika Toivanen, the company’s CEO. “Education is one part of how we deliver solutions.”
But as more TriaTech customers began using cloud-based Microsoft 365 (the MSP has delivered Office 365 to customers since the platform’s 2011 debut), it became evident that a key component was missing from its own service offerings: data backup and restore.
“We have been talking internally for a long time that we should offer backup solutions to our customers,” but hadn’t yet done so, Toivanen said.
That marked a change from past practice at TriaTech.
“When you delivered on-premises solutions, you always talked about backup; you never offered a service without it,” Toivanen said. “But when it comes to cloud solutions, you somehow think that Microsoft takes care of everything — and they do in some parts — but it’s not enough.”
Used out-of-the-box, M365 retains documents deleted from the SharePoint recycle bin for 93 days (for emails, it’s 14 days). A massive shift to the cloud, boosted by workplace demands from the COVID-19 pandemic, has presented scores of new M365 users with this data protection gap.
MSPs are determining how to best help customers handle evolving needs and protect them against surprise data loss.
After all, “if something would happen to their data, they would come to us and say: ‘Well, why didn’t you tell us?’” Toivanen said.
It was an eye-opener for us to see the possibilities of AvePoint Cloud Backup. I see the potential for offering it to all of our Microsoft customers.
CEO, TriaTech
The AvePoint Solution
Now, TriaTech can avoid that conversation. The MSP recently began offering AvePoint’s Cloud Backup as an add-on service for clients.
AvePoint Cloud Backup is a 100% SaaS solution that provides automated, comprehensive backup and restore services for M365, Salesforce, and Dynamics 365. It features built-in storage and encryption and offers flexible pricing plans based on the number of users.
Although TriaTech explored several options, including KeepIt and Veeam, only one solution met all their criteria.
“We looked for the best fit and the best product, and it was AvePoint Cloud Backup,” Toivanen said, citing the solution’s continued updates that provide data backup for new M365 offerings such as Teams and Planner.
“One of the reasons is that you are very close to Microsoft, very fast and on track,” he added. “Also, it’s pretty automatic — we don’t have to do much; it just works.”
TriaTech, which purchased Cloud Backup via the ALSO distributor, started delivering Cloud Backup in April 2021. It now uses the solution to protect workloads for over 1000 customer seats in M365, which amounts to 12 TB of data.
Already, customers have come to value the peace of mind and worry-free service delivery that includes daily backups and an 8-hour recovery time if data is lost. (At this time, TriaTech customers have not deployed Cloud Backup’s self-service or AVA virtual assistant functions.)
Instead, “they trust us,” Toivanen said. “It’s part of our agreement that we take care of the backup for them.”
The Road Ahead
TriaTech has been so pleased with Cloud Backup that it hopes to eventually deliver the solution to its entire customer base of 5,000 seats in M365.
A successful deployment with a large TriaTech customer helped set the stage. “It was an eye-opener for us to see the possibilities of AvePoint Cloud Backup,” Toivanen said. “I see the potential for offering it to all of our Microsoft customers.”
Now, the capabilities are part of the TriaTech brand. The company has promoted its M365 backup and restore services on its blog and LinkedIn, and more promotional efforts are ahead.
“We’re creating marketing material so we can develop more business,” Toivanen said, adding that the efforts make a strong case for Cloud Backup’s ability to meet the common yet critical needs of clients.
“One is retention time, how far back you can go, and the other is how fast you can restore data,” Toivanen said. “Once we talk from these two angles, the customer understands much better. Then, it’s up to them to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
