SaaS data protection vendor Keepit has set out its stall to win big in the relatively fledgling market.
The firm is exploiting demand for increasing demand for SaaS protection – particularly as companies begin to realize they are responsible for backing up their own SaaS data, not the SaaS providers.
At this week’s Technology Live! Paris – a regular data management vendor showcase for press and analysts – Copenhagen, Denmark-headquartered Keepit said it planned to increase the number of SaaS workloads it planned to protect for end customers. The company reaches those customers through channel partners.
Currently, it protects SaaS data generated through eight key business applications/software suites – including Microsoft 365, Google Workplace, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Azure DevOps, Zendesk, Power Platform, and Extra ID (formerly Azure AD).
Keepit will be increasing this number over the short- to medium-term, it declared. To do this, it will have to develop the connectors that customers will have to use to back up data from the new applications covered.
Overall, it’s a market that is also targeted by the likes of cloud data management vendor Veeam, which offers protection for Salesforce and Microsoft 365 data, for instance. And cloud data backup player HYCU has also been making big noise in the market too, after commercially launching a specific SaaS backup service about 18 months ago.
Keepit has been building up its own datacenter capacity to support customers’ SaaS data, which can be accessed by them on demand. Six of the seven datacenters the company runs involve capacity it rents in Equinix facilities across the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland. To address data sovereignty requirements, customers can stipulate their data stays in their particular region.
The service is aimed at companies of all sizes and charged per seat/user, with no extra charges for putting in or taking out data from the Keepit backup infrastructure. The cost is around €3 a month for each user, with the average cost coming down for enterprises with large numbers of users.
Sylvain Siou, VP of go-to-market technology at Keepit, said: “All data storage is included in the cost, so customers have simplicity and total cost control.
“We are much cheaper than storing the data in the public cloud – over time, that cost tends to steadily increase. Our charges are flat.”
Users have to buy seats for each separate workload that is backed up. When asked how Keepit charges match up against the likes of HYCU, and the many other data backup companies, Keepit maintains that on price it doesn’t often get beaten after sitting down with customers.
One reason Keepit reckons it can win on price is that it runs its own infrastructure, unlike some rivals that pay to store customers’ data in the public cloud.
All Keepit data is stored on high density disks and is deemed as “hot” – so customers can get immediate access to it when it is needed. More expensive flash systems are not seen as “viable” for the service that Keepit provides. There is no room for tape either, as none of the data is regarded as “cold.” The company mainly uses Dell Technologies hardware in its datacenters.
