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The Client

Since 1996, Diamond IT has been the trusted Information and Communication Technology (ICT) partner of regional small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

“Though our head office is based in Newcastle, Diamond IT services businesses across Australia and beyond. Our key efforts focus on the provision of reliable solutions that fit each customer ’s unique business needs,” says Martin Thurgate, one of Diamond IT’s founding directors.

Diamond IT had been increasingly moving many of its customers to cloud based solutions and, more specifically, migrating them to the Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, Microsoft 365.

The Challenge

Diamond IT understood that while Microsoft 365 provides availability and uptime of the actual application for its users, this does not mean it is a data backup system. Backing up cloud data remains the responsibility of each individual business.

This means that a glaring security gap exists. Fundamentally, it’s the customer ’s responsibility to protect their data – which essentially means it’s in the hands of each customer’s trusted Managed Service Provider (MSP) to sort out.

“As one of my customers repeatedly tells me,” says Thurgate, “Our data is our business. If it is lost or compromised, we might as well shut the doors.”

Retention policies may include deleting departing employee user accounts from the system, but this means their data also disappears. It is not backed up by Microsoft 365. And, of course, both internal and external security threats are an ever present company fear – and, unfortunately, a reality for a growing number of organisations.

Previous Approach

Diamond implemented a cloud based Office 365 backup solution to protect its Office 365 customers. “It was a great solution if you simply look at it in isolation. But it was clearly not designed for the needs of MSPs from billing through to product delivery. Billing was a nightmare requiring hours of hands-on cross checking and retrospective billing adjustments.”

Additionally, the solution offered no flexibility requiring Diamond IT to licence its customers for all components when they were not needed. This was not attractive to the customer.

Backup365 as a Solution

“We had no option but to look around,” adds Thurgate. The MSP identified a new SaaS Microsoft 365 offering – Backup365®. It offered all the data back-up needs required for Microsoft 365 users, including those also using SharePoint, OneDrive and other cloud-based business solutions. Critically, Backup365 is tailored for the MSP market offering greater flexibility and billing that’s tailored to MSPs, including a high level of automation.

“We also like the fact that it is developed in Australia and the help desk is locally based,” says Thurgate. “We are encouraged to communicate with the development team and they genuinely listen to us and then waste no time in incorporating our ideas into their product enhancements. At the end of the day, we are the ones at the coal face. “The fact that we can confidently say to our Microsoft 365 customers that all of their data is backed up, searchable and accessible for as long as they need it, is peace of mind for everyone. Today, our Backup365 customers range from ten through to 350 seats covering multiple industries,” concludes Thurgate.