Pisys.net is an independent IT services company ounded in 2003 by Steve Bain and John Merrick, with the vision of providing affordable IT support and services to SMEs in South Wales. Headquartered in Swansea, Pisys.net has grown to become one of the leading outsourced IT suppliers in the region, spanning public and private sectors, working with a variety of businesses from start-ups to multi-site operations.

Pisys.net first discovered, and registered as a reseller with Macrium Software, seven years ago. Since 2011 Pisys.net has implemented backup and DR solutions at many businesses and is an expert at data protection projects. With the recent launch of the Macrium MVP Service Provider program, Pisys.net quickly included Macrium Site Manager, along with MultiSite in their offerings to their loyal customer base. This has to lead to the rapid roll-out to almost 100 customers!

As a long time partner and implementer of Macrium Reflect image-based backup solutions, Pisys.net is familiar with the speed and reliability they provide but needed comprehensive management and monitoring to provide managed backup service with Macrium Software.

Macrium Site Manager was initially released in late 2017 and MultiSite in early 2018. Since this time Macrium has been busy building, testing and trialling subscription billing with the new Metered License keys. In April 2018 the tools to create and deploy the Macrium MSP model were launched and Pisys.net quickly became the biggest user in the UK. Macrium is delighted with the positive and constructive engagement from the Pisys.net team and look forward to another 7 years working together.

"We recommend Macrium to our customers – to protect both them and ourselves, as we know we will be able to recover in the event anything goes wrong."

Challenges

When Pisys.net tested Macrium Site Manager and MultiSite they were trying "to find a solution which would manage all backups in one location across all of our clients." They were looking for "the ability to monitor backups from one central location, in order to maintain the "reliability of the service".

"We don’t need a flamboyant product, we just want a solution that works, is reliable and gives the information you need when you need it. If it does that, job done!"

How Macrium helped them

Pisys.net first implemented Macrium Site Manager but needed another level of control: "We have integrated the product with our own RMM system so that we can have all our different systems report to the same point. That worked great for the notifications, but we still couldn’t control backups, which was the appeal of Macrium Site Manager and MultiSite – so we could control backups centrally and remotely as well." With MultiSite, the solution was fully integrated and easy to manage.

"Macrium is quick and cost effective."

Over the past seven years Pisys.net has come to rely on Macrium image-based backup solutions years noting that it "always been pretty solid. It (Macrium Reflect) wouldn’ suddenly stop running, as some other backup software would."

The MSP program and Metered License Keys are perfect for Pisys.net, as they only need to charge their customers based on deployed agents and monthly usage. Metered License Keys can be quickly generated without the need to ask Macrium, and then added to a Site Manager installation on a customers site. Large numbers of customer sites can be easily managed and monitored from the Cloud-based MultiSite tool.

On the dedicated MVP MSP portal, new keys can be generated, usage reports generated and keys disabled if needed. The combination of the MSP Programme, Site Manager and MultiSite means that MSP's have a more flexible way of providing their services. "The installation is fairly straightforward we log on remotely and install Site Manager before deploying agents and configuring backups. Our customers don't need to do anything."

Results

Macrium Site Manager and MultiSite have a customisable dashboards and allow easy configuration of relevant alerts. "we don't have to log on to computers anymore, but can quickly check what was wrong and control it. That allows us to work way quicker and more efficient – this can sometimes save you half a day's work." Pisys.net have ignificantly reduced the time of response to failed backups and emergency recovery as they are able to remotely manage customer sites.

You can download this case studay as a PDF (with the button below the video).

You can download Macrium Site Manager here which inlcudes a 30-Day Trial of one Server and 5 Workstation licenses.