SMB backup capacity requirements are notoriously difficult to predict. After all, in a large enterprise, a new application or data source only has minimal impact on overall backup volume requirements. In an SMB environment, on the other hand, even a single new IT system or resource can dramatically affect backup volume if it’s used intensively enough.
That unpredictability—combined with the fact that business data as a whole is growing at a rate of 60% or more annually—presents a quandary for MSPs and their SMB customers alike. Underestimate volume requirements, and you’ll have to scramble to increase infrastructure capacity and ratchet up your costs. Overestimate volume requirements, and you’ll overspend and reduce your ROI.
Hybrid cloud enables MSPs and SMBs to cope with this unpredictability in several ways. On-premise, it allows for the use of virtualization in order to adaptively and incrementally add capacity as needed for the local staging of the most current backups of the most current data, applications and server images. Off-premise, it gives SMBs access to as much capacity as they need—while also not locking them into excess capacity if they don’t need it.
Also, as explained below, MSPs and SMBs can take advantage of retention-based pricing to keep monthly cloud backup costs predictable—even though the actual volume of data being protected in the cloud may not be.