Backup Technology team come back with MSP Assured Data Protection

New MSP will be built around data management start-up Rubrik

The former management team at disaster recovery firm Backup Technology have reunited to form Assured Data Protection.

Backup Technology founder Simon Chappell sold the firm to Scotland's iomart Group in 2013 but has started the new firm after being impressed by data management start-up Rubrik.

Officially launched six weeks ago, the UK Assured Data team comprises Chappell and two former Backup Technology employees - Rob Mackle and Stew Parkin.

The US arm, Assured Data Protection Inc, also launched yesterday and is headed up by Stacy Hayes, formerly executive vice president at Virtustream, and Andrew Eva who joins having been head of backup services at Verizon.

Chappell explained that he originally had no intention of getting back into the IT business after selling Backup Technology, but that changed when he was introduced to Rubrik's backup and recovery technology.

"We've based our entire business around the Rubrik technology because it's nothing short of revolutionary," Chappell said.

"It's the first hyper-converged data protection solution ever to go on the market and what really excites me is we know that when we walked into a mid-market or enterprise account [at Backup Technology] we'd also bump into challenges.

"Even though we were delivering a really competent backup-as-a-service it was always the additional conversations which were difficult because we'd have to recommend alternative products - with Rubrik you don't have to do that. The replication and the disaster recovery is outstanding, the archive is amazing and the backup piece itself is amazing."

Chapell explained that Rubrik competes with the likes of Commvault, but explained that its solution as a mix of "Veeam's replication piece, Commvault's backup piece, and then add in something like Azure or [Amazon Web Service's] S3 as an archive pot - and then it does it all in one".

Rubrik has been on a European expansion drive this year and secured $61m of funding in August, taking its total investment pot to $112m (£92m).

Alex Raistrick, director for Europe at Rubrik, told CRN that the vendor will be able to take advantage of the experience that Assured Data Protection's team has to offer.

"They have many years' experience in the market they operate in," he said.

"They're doing it again but with modern technology so they know how to do all the key things - they know how to support, they know how to supply and they know how to help people create an opex model for their backup instead of a capex model.

"They've got the secret source from their understanding of the market and it's really just a case of applying it to new and exciting technology."