Ceeva Maximizes Microsoft Azure Uptime With Datto

Public cloud adoption is accelerating for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). When it comes to seamless cloud adoption, managed service providers (MSPs) have the opportunity to provide a major assist to their clients. Ceeva sees its clients moving rapidly towards comprehensive cloud adoption.

Ceeva frequently points its clients to Microsoft Azure for its public cloud platform. “Most businesses are almost there already in some form,” says Rick Topping, Vice President of Operations and Technology for Ceeva. “There’s a good chance they’re using Microsoft 365 for email services at minimum, which integrates easily with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) on the backend. It’s an easy decision to guide people that way when they’re already using familiar authentication methods and interfaces.”

There are challenges when transitioning from on-prem to the cloud, where workloads are hosted by leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platforms like Azure. When SMBs adopt Azure IaaS, they agree to a shared responsibility model. In this model, Microsoft handles the security of the physical hosts, network and data centers, while the customer remains responsible for protecting everything else: applications, data, endpoints and more. “SMBs understand that they have the same responsibility with the public cloud as with on-premises systems to ensure their data is available to employees at all times. Meanwhile, company information and workloads must remain safe and secure,” states Topping.

As SMBs transition to the cloud, they increasingly rely on MSPs to ensure their business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) coverage remains firmly in place. “Our customers tell us that minimizing downtime is the most important thing,” says Topping. “However, there are challenges for MSPs with the native Azure Backup system that Microsoft provides. The costs are not predictable and it doesn’t integrate with our existing systems, which makes it hard to know if you have a functioning backup.”

To deliver the level of protection that SMBs expect, MSPs need a secure and reliable solution that maximizes uptime while also complementing their existing toolset and billing model.

Ceeva chose Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure, a BCDR solution built specifically for MSPs, to protect its Azure clients. With Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure, MSPs get a solution that eliminates single cloud vulnerability, offers predictable pricing and simplifies management so they can free up billable hours. It does so by delivering multicloud protection at a simple, flat-fee price.

“Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure is an ideal solution for Ceeva and our end customers,” Topping says. “We rely on Datto SIRIS for on-premises BCDR. When Datto launched Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure, we knew we’d be able to provide the same high performance that our customers expect.”

Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure was built specifically for MSPs. It allows MSPs to manage protection for cloud and on-premises workloads from a single portal, organized by client for efficiency. “MSPs have to manage backups for hundreds of other businesses, which Microsoft’s tools aren’t designed for,” Topping continues.

“Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure centralizes everything in a single pane of glass, so you can understand everything that’s happening at a given moment — that’s paramount for an MSP to be sure we’re delivering on our promise.”

As SMBs continue gravitating toward the public cloud, Ceeva has the confidence that comes with a Datto solution made for the needs of MSPs. “Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure gives us the reliability and trust we require for BCDR,” Topping concludes.