MSP evaluation criteria

When you begin to evaluate an MSP solution for disaster recovery and backup as a service, have a set of metrics to hand by which you need the MSP to operate. The two most important ones are Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and the Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

RPO is the maximum period over which you are willing to lose data on your systems because of the incident. As you settle on a value for the RPO, consider that a longer RPO makes a more affordable solution, while a shorter RPO means you lose less data and hence, less work product may be lost. The longer the RPO, the more affordable the solution, but you accept a more significant loss of data.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

RTOs determine how quickly you recover data from the time the incident occurred. Instead of relating to the data, like the RPO, the RTO relates to how long you can tolerate not operating. For some organisations, services may directly relate to your availability.  For healthcare organisations, for example, systems that are offline for an extended period could put patients lives at risk.

Other considerations

Cyber Security

Cyber security is critical to all IT related operations, as cyber is in everything we do online. Cloud services providers should be certified using one of several security standards, such as ISO 27001. Look for evidence of their certifications and carefully read the contract and terms and conditions as to how they handle both your security and your privacy.

Data sovereignty

Location may be another important factor for you,  as you may have data sovereignty requirements you must adhere to. If this is the case, check that when your data is moved to cloud storage that it’s stored within your national border. However, the MSP might also operate internationally, so make sure your data doesn’t get replicated elsewhere outside of the national perimeter to protect the services the MSP provides to you.

Find an MSP to support your online education services

Catalyst is an AWS Partner that supports Enterprise learning management systems (LMS) across higher education, government and the commercial sector.  Explore how our services can help you with your edtech.

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