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Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Turns Managed Service Providers Into Managed Security Providers
More than ever, cybersecurity solutions are core to any MSPs offering. No longer should service providers be farming this out to dedicated security providers. Trust and peace of mind were the core tenants of what they are selling and solutions like Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud can provide the platform upon which to deliver on those promises.
In an exclusive briefing with Info-Tech Research Group, Acronis unveiled its Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud suite, a comprehensive solution that covers the gamut of cyber protection offerings, including:
- Data backup and recovery
- Malware/ransomware prevention and detection
- Remote desktop management
- Remote server, infrastructure management
Cyber Protect Cloud has consolidated all the above functionality into a single agent, simplifying the deployment for the technical operations staff of managed service providers and the enterprise IT departments that are making use of them.
Source: SoftwareReviews Enterprise Backup and Availability, Report Published January 2019
Most known for its multiple-award winning predecessor product, Acronis Cyber Backup, Acronis is leaning heavily into the full suite of cybersecurity protection tools, demonstrating that data protection is about more than merely backing up data.
Our Take
The term managed security services provider (MSSP) has been used to place a technology service provider specializing in cybersecurity services (including malware detection/prevention, security incident handling, and so on) in stark contrast to a traditional managed service provider (MSP) focused more on endpoint and infrastructure uptime and running backup and restore procedures.
Why then would Acronis market its new Cyber Protect Cloud suite to its network of 50,000 channel partners, rather than focusing on MSSPs exclusively?
Perhaps this is because, like us, it believes that in 2020, the concept of an MSSP needs to die. And MSPs that do not offer a comprehensive cybersecurity protection strategy will die as well. By unveiling the Cyber Protect Cloud suite to the entire channel, Acronis is sending a clear message to the industry that it is prepared to arm traditional MSPs with the capabilities needed to truly protect their clients' data from all vectors, rather than merely backing it up.
And yet security service providers are not born overnight after buying tools off the shelf. Rather, truly offering cyber protection services to your clients requires the establishment of proper processes, procedures, and investment in training. This is exactly why traditional MSPs have been so reticent to provide these services from within, opting instead to partner with MSSPs to complete the picture.
An MSP, aspiring to provide cybersecurity solutions directly, could look at pairing the tools suite with a managed offering provided by the same vendor. In this specific case that would be Acronis Cyber Services. In this model, the software vendor is also providing the lift function needed to perform security incident handling, cybersecurity awareness training facilitation, and so on.
These are the truly valuable services that organizations need from MSPs. Sure, they still need remote monitoring, backup, and disaster recovery – but those are commodity services. What organizations value, what they will truly pay for, is protection from dreaded ransomware, compliance management, and security incident management. Leveraging these services from the tools vendor can act as a stop gap while the MSP retools itself internally to provide these services more directly.
In 2020, MSPs need to self-identify as managed security providers, providing comprehensive cybersecurity protection of infrastructure and data and consultative services around compliance reporting.