Richard speaks to Chad Savoy and Daniel Camara of Spanning Backup about why MSPs should invest in a separate backup provider rather than relying on the SaaS, and how Spanning makes that easier.
An Interview with Chad Savoy and Daniel Camara
Who are Spanning?
Spanning started in Texas in 2010 and currently have 65 employees. They offer cloud to cloud/SaaS) Software as a Service) backup for Office 365, G-Suite and Salesforce. They’ve been through three acquisitions since 2014: firstly, by EMC, then Dell took over EMC. More recently, they’ve been acquired by Kaseya, which both Chad and Daniel see as a positive for the business.
Spanning’s traditional customer base was midmarket and enterprise companies, and had a large reach. With the Kaseya acquisition, they’ll now be able to offer their services to SMBs and MSPs (managed service providers).
Why MSPs Should Offer an Additional Backup Product
SaaS providers offer their own backup to their customers, so Daniel admits that many MSPs wonder why they need to bother with an additional platform. However, he explains that companies like Microsoft and Salesforce have these to protect their own liability in case they can’t meet their SLAs (service level agreements).
In reality, there are hundreds of thousands of users, and human error is unavoidable. The SaaS providers can’t be responsible for the end user doing something they shouldn’t and causing data loss.
Spanning act as an insurance policy to make sure that nothing harmful is done to the data and that it’s protected from ransomware or malicious outside attacks. They provide a security blanket to ensure the business keeps running.
How Spanning Works for MSP Businesses
Spanning is fully integrated with Kaseya. Users can simply go into their VSA (virtual storage appliance) environment, download the Spanning module and view a breakdown of all of their customers, including licencing information.
They will be providing additional features and functionalities to focus on things like alerting and status monitoring, meaning that MSPs don’t have to go into every single tenant every single day to monitor and prevent errors.
The intention to make Spanning easy for MSPs to use directly within the VSA, and will be adding more licencing and provisioning features. They will be introducing a standalone tool for Office 365, to go alongside the tool they already have for Google, and the long-term goal is to have a platform for both of those and Salesforce so they can all be managed in one place.
Chad’s Approach to Leadership
Chad says his philosophy is simply ‘work hard, play hard.’ In his earlier career he experienced internal promotion from within, rising from a salesperson to running global sales for his employers.
He says it’s a great way to build character: “Whether you think you’re ready for it or not, you’re forced into that, and that type of self-discovery is really good for growth”. Spanning promote that too, offering both vertical movement and trials in other departments, so employees can see where their skillset is going to be best utilised.
He says that everybody at Spanning enjoys what they do, making the hard work fun. We enjoy cracking out and having a good time afterwards as well. He describes it as a family unit, and they’ve had a fun adventure so far. The Kaseya acquisition will broaden everyone’s horizons further.
Mentioned in This Episode
- Spanning Backup
- Office 365
- G-Suite
- Salesforce
- Dell
- Kaseya
- Tech firm CDW
- Tech firm SHI
Interview Transcript
Transcript – TubbTalk 49 with Chad Savoy and Daniel Camara and Richard Tubb
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Richard Tubb is one of the best-known experts within the global IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) community. He launched and sold his own MSP business before creating a leading MSP media and consultancy practice. Richard helps IT business owner’s take back control by freeing up their time and building a business that can run without them. He’s the author of the book “The IT Business Owner’s Survival Guide” and writer of the award-winning blog www.tubblog.co.uk
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