Axcient Looks To Fill Holes In Office 365 Data Protection

While the adoption of Microsoft Office 365 continues to grow, clients counting on security tools built into the platform might be better service with third-party data protection platforms.

That's the word from Michael Elliott, director of product marketing at Axcient, a Denver-based developer of data protection technology, who told MSPs attending the NexGen 2018 Conference and Expo that they are the key to protecting clients' most valuable data.

Axcient, which last year expanded its MSP business with the acquisition of eFolder, helps MSPs protect data in Microsoft Office 365, VMware, and cloud environments, Elliott (pictured, left) said. Such a capability is extremely important especially in Office 365 environments where so much can go wrong, he said.

[Related: Goodbye eFolder, Hello Axcient: Merged Company Rebrands, Intros Suite With Products From Both]

Cory Hintz, sales engineer at Axcient, noted several of the alleged issues with Office 365 when it comes to data protection.

These include a recovery process that can take from a few hours to a few days, the need to recover an entire user or mailbox just to recover a single bit of lost data, a lack of compliance documentation, and additional software required to manage archiving of data, Hintz said.

Axcient's CloudFinder application, on the other hand, solves these issues in several ways, Hintz said.

These include a very fast smart search that requires no scripting, the ability to restore data without a "forced mass restore," and full reporting and monitoring including auditing of data backups, he said.

Axcient also offers full compliance capabilities including email retention for such requirements as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 in large part because it owns its own data center, Hintz said. "We have one of the most compliant data centers in the industry," he said.

Elliott said Axcient makes it easy for MSPs to add data protection to their client offerings by just bundling it with other services and set their own prices accordingly. "Most of my partners will bump [the price] up 100 percent to 200 percent," he said.

Axcient plans to add Microsoft Teams protection some time in the second quarter of 2019, he said.

The lack of good native tools for protecting and recovering data in Office 365 environments is a big issue, said Mike Miller, a solutions consultant at Sidepath, a Laguna Hills, Calif.-based solution provider.

"These present opportunities for partners and service providers to help clients," Miller told CRN. "One challenge for companies like Axcient when protecting data is that it has its own data repository which could add a layer of complexity. But there's no doubt a big opportunity for Axcient, especially when it comes to things like e-discovery."