FINAL WORD
It is no longer about selling a backup appliance to a customer , but about having knowledge and experience of the various offerings that exist in the market to craft a comprehensive solution to meet customer needs .
In recent years many more organisations have embraced Software as a Service , SaaS , particularly Backup as a Service , BaaS as increased workloads have migrated into the cloud . In Africa , this migration to the cloud is being led by smaller enterprises without the legacy infrastructure and investment , whereas the larger businesses have shifted critical workloads in order to gain agility advantages .
In either instance , having on-premises backups make little sense for cloud-based data , although large enterprises still tend to have secondary backups to their own infrastructure . As the way that backups and data management are performed continues to evolve alongside cloud and hybrid environments , the reseller needs to take on a new role .
It is no longer about selling a backup appliance to a customer , but about having knowledge and experience of the various offerings that exist in the market to craft a comprehensive solution to meet customer needs .
Although many organisations in Africa have embraced the cloud , bandwidth remains an expensive commodity , which is holding some enterprises back from a complete cloud migration . There also remains the hidden costs like ingress , egress , and network charges , and customers are aware of these potential expenses .
This has resulted in the majority of businesses adopting a hybrid scenario of certain elements on-premises and others in the cloud . This adds a layer of complexity to the backup and data management environment , which means that it becomes more important than ever to adopt the best solution .
Cloud storage and backup are based in a hosted environment , whether this is with one of the major hyperscalers or within a private cloud , while on-premises backups require infrastructure hosted either in a datacentre or on business premises . The decision of which to use depends on many factors , and the best blend is often entirely dependent on the unique situation of the business .
This makes it more important than ever for resellers to propose solutions , rather than sell products , so that customers can get the best option for their unique requirements .
For smaller businesses that are entirely in the cloud , cloud backup and storage make complete sense . This scenario removes the need for physical infrastructure to house the backups as well as ensures they are
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