December 2018

MSPs: How are You Protecting Your Linux Clients?

Backup Solutions, Managed Services Insights / / / , , , , , , ,

As a Managed Service Provider (MSP) you want to offer your clients the best possible solutions for their IT needs. Whilst most solutions revolve around the Windows operating system, ActiveImage can offer MSPs live backups and fast restoration of Linux machines with ActiveImage Protector Linux.

What is the ActiveImage Protector Linux?

The ActiveImage Protector Linux can offer your MSP the following options for your portfolio:

  • Our Linux snapshot driver that backs up live / hot Linux machines.
  • Recover, restore, migrate and virtualize using our Linux based Recovery Environment.
  • Ensure data integrity and security without having to shutdown MySQL.
  • Efficiently reduce backup file storage with our Inline Data Deduplication Compression feature, which places minimal impact on backup windows and restore time.
  • Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS physical and virtual machines.
  • Unlimited replication to onsite, offsite and Cloud locations for greater protection against ransomware attacks.
  • Program backup windows are down to every 5 minutes and include multiple disks into one disk image.
  • Automatic deleting of old backup image sets
  • Mount an image file as a virtual drive for quick and convenient granular recovery of files and folders contained in the image file.

The ActiveImage Protector Linux also allows you to enhance recovery times with the VStandby AIP Instant Disaster Recovery Solution.

The vStandby AIP add-on module offers reliable Instant Disaster Recovery options for all Windows and Linux machines. Clients will be able to recover their ActiveImage Protector backup files in as little as 2 minutes in Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESX(i), and be able to continue using it with no performance impact or time limitations.

If you are not able to offer your clients this kind of solution, get in contact with ActiveImage today!

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Hyper-V Backup Tactics Every MSP Should Know

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If you are an MSP offering Hyper-V backup to your customers, any oversight on your part can prove to be quite costly. Therefore, you need to make sure you can offer your clients the best backup strategy.

What Your Hyper-V Backup Strategy Should Include

  • A special backup software should be used instead of using scripts for backing up on virtual machines. Scripts lack essential capabilities, such as error detection, and file verification, which make it an outdated practice.
  • Although virtual platforms are free from physical limitations, they should be regularly backed up so that the client has a recent record of their data if there is a crash or software malfunction.
  • Virtual disks should not be expanded often as this can slow down the backup process.
  • It is very important that the host and Hyper-V machine communicate effectively, therefore they should be updated regularly.
  • You should choose a compression mode that suits the amount of data you want to backup and the hardware you have.
  • Staying on top of Windows updates are important to protect servers and weed out any reported bugs that are fixed in the improved update.

If your current strategy does not include the above tactics, you will want to consider adding the ActiveImage Protector Hyper-V Enterprise to your portfolio.

What You Can Expect from the ActiveImage Protector Hyper-V Enterprise

  • Backup for all VMs without having to install an agent on each guest machine.
  • Save storage space with a deduplication across all VMs
  • Manage all ActiveImage Protector licences from a single network console
  • Replication to single or multiple locations onsite, offsite or into the Cloud.
  • Scheduled recovery point objectives every 5 minutes using agentless backup.
  • Restore individual or multiple VMs
  • Restore and migrate one or more VMs directly to the same host or to a different Hyper-V host with new or dissimilar hardware.
  • Backups to all VMs and the host.

For more information on the ActiveImage Protector Hyper-V Enterprise, contact us today!

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MSPs: How Are Your Clients Backing Up Their Virtual Machines?

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Virtualization and cloud computing is becoming more and more popular among smaller corporations. The implementation of these tactics may leave a company exposed without a proper backup plan. It is important to not just back up the data being processed by virtual machines, but also to back up the virtual machines themselves.

Virtual machines (VMs) process and store all the data in a virtual ecosystem, and therefore, it is important to back them up with efficient systems.

A backup of the entire VM ecosystem needs to include the ability to go back to the last and most recent state of the virtual machines. Additionally, the service instances, the software installed in the VMs like a particular application server, also needs to be backed up.

ActiveImage can offer your clients complete peace of mind by protecting their Windows and Linux VMs on any Hypervisors with ActiveImage Protector Virtual editions.

Why Choose ActiveImage Protector Virtual Edition?

This ActiveImage Protector Virtual supports the latest technologies and legacy OSes to protect older and the latest virtual machines with automatic backups that are scheduled every 5 minutes, ensuring a minimal amount of data loss.

Great backup systems also need great recovery times and automated recoverability testing.
The ActiveImage Protector Virtual retrieves files, folders and other data in seconds, as well as automatically verifies backup creation and content.

Restoration has never been easier, as a client’s virtual machine can be restored to the same or a different host or hypervisor. With ActiveImage Protector Virtual – Unlimited Edition, Windows hosts can be restored at any time on similar or dissimilar hardware with all its protected VMs.

In fact there are three versions of ActiveImage Protector Virtual that are available, each one providing different solutions in order to fit with a client’s IT infrastructure. Our options allow MSPs to protect a single VM or all VMs on a host or even virtual machines across multiple hosts.

The different versions of ActiveImage Protector Virtual also includes ImageCenter LE to protect backups with onsite and offsite replication to an unlimited number of target destinations.

To top it all off, your clients will never have to worry about storage space with on-the-fly deduplication for each of their virtual machines.

Contact ActiveImage today to add ActiveImage Protector Virtual to your portfolio.

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What is a Blended Attack?

Cybersecurity & IT Threats / / / , , , ,

Blended attacks combine multiple threats into a single attack to leave a networked computer completely compromised. Normal cyber attacks tend to have only one attack vector, but blended attacks will use multi-pronged strikes to exploit any vulnerabilities. Security and IT personnel have a difficult time trying to deal with a blended attack as they hit with great speed and inflict widespread damage.

Blended threats are capable of performing many different actions, including damaging and deleting critical files to stealing login credentials and crashing the company network.These attacks can also use multiple modes of transportation. Instead of spreading via email, a blended virus could use email, peer-to-peer networks, and even search engines.

For example, a blended attack could launch a DDoS attack, use a Trojan to install a rootkit, and simultaneously infect the server while staying undetected.

Protection Against Blended Attacks

The only way to stop a multifaceted threat is to have a multi-layered solution that combines encryption, firewall, anti-malware, and intrusion prevention capabilities. This type of combined solution is required to defend against threats, but also detect them. To do this, everything from monitoring and alerts to incident response and reporting is automated.

Once you have a good security process in place, the next step is to have a backup and recovery plan in case your data becomes unusable or inaccessible. At ActiveImage, we will be able to advise and provide you with the best solutions that will protect you data, as well as help put your business together again after disaster strikes.

What is a Blended Attack? Read More »

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