The shift to digital resources has gained particularly strong momentum over the past decade. In fact, it is practically impossible today to find a successful business anywhere that still relies exclusively on paper records. While digitization offers many obvious practical advantages, the specter of data loss or inaccessibility has often cast its shadow over its utility. Every organization wants a simple but reliable backup solution that allows them to reap the benefits of employing digital solutions without compromising their data and mobility. They need look no further than Altaro Software.
Why Altaro?
Altaro Software is one of the world’s fastest-growing providers of backup solutions for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) which employ a workforce of up to 1,000 people. Although less than a decade old, Altaro already has a client base of 40,000 such enterprises spread across 121 countries. Its partner network, which is over 7,000 members strong, allows Altaro to deliver precisely-targeted solutions to each client, no matter where they are located.
The company’s massive footprint can be attributed directly to the versatility and functionality of its offerings. They combine enterprise-class features with an agile framework for virtualized environments while maintaining an emphasis on affordability.
Another important factor in the company’s growth is their flagship Altaro VM Backup solution. It has become the platform of choice for VMware and Hyper-V data recovery, and is also available as a subscription-based solution for managed service providers (MSPs).
One of VM Backup’s main draws is its multi-tenant cloud console that enables the management of all customer installations via a central dashboard. To serve 40,000 clients means having to deal with a virtually infinite set of possible problems every single day. Altaro contends with these challenges by adhering to its core values under the guidance of the core leadership team.
The leaders base their decisions and strategy on 4 main pillars:
- Ease of use – The software solution is designed to provide a feature-rich platform that gives customers unprecedented control over their backups with ease and no dead weight.
- Outstanding technical support – As a backup services provider, Altaro understands that clients generally contact them at times when they are struggling with significant issues. Response time for live chat, phone and email support is 16 seconds, 22 seconds and under 1 hour respectively, earning Altaro a positive feedback rating of 99%.
- Exceptional education resources – Every client gains free access to Altaro’s VMware, Hyper-V, and MSP communities. Here, they can interact with industry professionals to get tips and advice in the form of articles, eBooks, and webinars.
- An empowered channel – Through their network of over 7,000 worldwide partners, Altaro can deliver unified solutions through teams that intimately understand the local business environment.
This driven focus to create, deliver, and support the very best that VMware has to deliver has won Altaro widespread recognition. Among the latest accolades it has won on its impressive journey are the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year: Rising Star 2017, the CIO Applications Top 25 Microsoft Solution Providers 2017, the European Business Awards 2017/2018: One to Watch, and Editor’s choice – Company of the Year 2018 at this year’s Storage Awards.
Targeted Efficiency, Unsurpassed Affordability
One of the inevitable consequences of the surge in demand for digital backup solutions was the corresponding increase in the number of companies offering relevant products and services. Altaro has distinguished itself in a crowded field by adopting a revolutionary approach to creating those solutions.
Altaro’s competitors overwhelmingly employ the standard tactic of taking enterprise editions of software meant for large corporations and stripping them of features that SMBs might not need. While this does create a version of the platform that is more suited to SMBs, the end result is very often a disjointed remainder of an enterprise product.
Conversely, Altaro begins with SMBs as its core focus. The company builds off-the-shelf VM backup software solutions using components that work seamlessly together. Its clients get a product where every element performs a specific and necessary role; there is no clutter and no wastage of space or resources.
This philosophy of lean operations pervades the entire company. It is how their customers can have a new working system up and running in a previously-unimaginable period of just 15 minutes.
With this speed also comes efficiency. Altaro’s Inline Deduplication technology has proven itself to be light years ahead of comparable solutions for compressing backups. By employing this technology, Altaro VM Backup saves its clients an average of 63% in storage space.
In practical terms, this means that Altaro can compress 858 GB of data to just 390 GB. By contrast, its three main competitors manage to achieve 626 GB, 592 GB and 601 GB respectively for the same data. Not only is this a significant difference in actual storage space, it also has ramifications for bandwidth consumption and, consequently, network speed.
Meanwhile, Augmented Inline De-duplication does away with the need for post-processing so clients no longer need to group similar VMs together for the de-duplication process. This too, accelerates the backup and restores process to deliver savings in both storage space and time. Finally, Altaro clients are given two advantages that allow them to function without the fear of uncertainty if disaster does strike.
The first of these is the company’s continuous data protection which creates an RPO (recovery point objective) of up to five minutes. The other is their Boot from Backup capability that allows users to continue their work uninterrupted in case of a disaster because the system administrator can reboot a backup copy immediately upon VM failure.
Innovative Leadership
David Vella is the CEO of Altaro and has held that position since he co-founded the company in 2009. He is responsible for leading the company’s 80-strong global team across offices in Malta, the US, the UK, Macedonia and Germany. Altaro’s other co-founders are Julian Pace Ross, Simon Attard, and Stephen Chetcuti Bonavita who perform the roles of Chief Technology Officer, Chief Product Officer, and Worldwide Vice-President of Sales and Marketing respectively. Each of them has worked for a considerable period in the software industry.
David has extensive experience at all levels of management. Immediately prior to launching Altaro, he was employed by GFI Software in the capacity of Director of Product Management. In his 11 years there, he helped take GFI from a fledgling company of just 15 employees at a single location to a global enterprise that employed over 800 people.
Aside from his passion for Altaro, David is an enthusiastic promoter of entrepreneurship and a mentor to budding business leaders, both within the company and outside.
Laying Strong Foundations
There is no doubt that the VMware is ahead of the curve in platform virtualization software. It has already proven itself to be the most practical answer to the backup and cloud access challenges of the digital era for enterprise and is now becoming increasingly innovative in areas like micro-services.
As a backup vendor, Altaro is committed to ensuring that its clients using VMware – and their partners – have a streamlined, practical, and versatile backup solution for the VMware platform.
The company places great value on constantly evolving its products and services to keep IT departments, IT resellers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) prepared for system failures which inevitably occur. It is also investing in the development of new products and services that anticipate changes in the virtualization sphere to give its clients an edge over their competition.
These developments are being reinforced by Altaro’s expansion efforts, which include a new research and development/IT office in Macedonia as well as new sales and marketing offices in the US, the UK, and Germany. Their Malta branch is aggressively recruiting experts from relevant fields across all each of the company’s areas of operations to strengthen their ability to deliver cutting-edge solutions.
Given its proven track record of providing the most innovative virtualization backup services, there is little doubt that Altaro will continue to push the boundaries of what VMware can achieve for its clients.
Source :-The 10 Best Performing VMware Solution Providers 2018