Storage and networking distributor Zycko has launched a data investigation software tool that resellers can offer their customers as a type of storage health check.
The Backup Analysis Tool, which is free of charge, can be used to analyse a firm’s backup environment to create an accurate picture of its storage needs, paving the way for additional consultancy and bolt-on sales.
David Galton-Fenzi, group sales director at Zycko, said: “Firms buy backup solutions and then think the problems go away. But there are so many aspects to backup and most firms do not have the tools available to be able to assess their situation.”
Galton-Fenzi said the tool was vendor-independent and is able to run with no disruption to the end-user’s operational environment.
“Resellers can go to their customers and say they are offering the tool as a free consultative piece which, in turn will lead onto many other things,” he said. “Most manufacturers don’t like promoting independent software tools to show how their products are working – they tend to like charging for it.”
He added the distributor is swallowing the back-end costs for the tool’s development and offering it to partners free, as a way of improving relations with customers and building additional business for both Zycko and its reseller base.
Rob Gretton, business development director at storage consultancy Primus Solutions, said: “Backup and recovery tends to be a bit of a black art. This tool takes the guesswork out of it by downloading a piece of software and running it unobtrusively on a company network. It can only offer benefits to both resellers and customers.
“From the customer’s perspective it means they won’t have tape drives or a tape library for the sake of it – they are actually making use of all their storage. While, for a reseller, it is a great way to build a relationship and also a good foundation for add-on sales further down the line.”
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