Before digging into the technologies that make Datto unique, let’s take a higher-level view of the state of business continuity. For years, the BCDR landscape was pretty much stagnant. Incremental enhancements and new developments didn’t do much to improve the overall backup-and-recovery experience. Frankly, it was terrible.

Backups have always been notorious for failure during recovery. Even when data could be recovered, servers took days to restore. Even then, the data recovery points were sometimes a day or two old, due to storage and processing constraints. That meant businesses were still losing tons of valuable data after a recovery, if they could recover data at all.

The folks at Datto Inc. have built their data-protection systems with all of these points in mind. They set out to build a better, faster, more reliable backup solution—with the goal of eliminating downtime completely—and that’s exactly what they’ve done.

Why is Datto’s backup process better? One big reason is that they’ve eliminated the most commonly occurring problems in the backup chain – with Datto’s patented Inverse Chain Technology.

Inverse Chain Technology uses image-based backups (ZFS) in a fully constructed state. The backups are fully bootable virtual machines that can be booted quickly to run applications from the Datto device or in the Datto Cloud. Backups can happen as frequently as every 5 minutes. They can be virtualized in seconds. Unneeded backups can be deleted without ever having to reset the backup chain.

This is a fundamental departure from traditional backup solutions, which involved first creating a full backup, and then dividing subsequent backup data into sets of files that have a dependent relationship (resulting in bulkier backup storage, heavy loads on computing resources and more fragile backup chains, especially when businesses aimed for better RPOs).

Inverse Chain Technology makes the whole backup process infinitely more efficient and dependable – so you know you’ll regain access to your data when disaster strikes.

Again, backups can be restored from either the on-site Datto device or the Datto Cloud. This hybrid approach provides the greatest assurance that you’ll be able to restore your data, regardless of how dire the situation is.

If your on-site infrastructure hasn’t been compromised, go ahead and recover locally for the fastest possible recovery. And if your servers are destroyed in a fire? Virtualize and recover from the Datto Cloud.

With Datto’s Hybrid Cloud, your on-site servers are protected with the BDR appliance and mirrored automatically to the Datto Cloud, thus improving fault tolerance while also increasing available resources and providing immediate access to all retained backups.

This is easily one of the biggest innovations in business continuity in the last decade. With Backup Insights, IT managers can use a simple web-based interface to quickly see what files have been deleted, modified or created within any two backup points (even when you have little information on when the files were removed or from which machine).

If someone has accidentally deleted a file or a folder, or a virus has infected a directory, Backup Insights makes it easy to identify what has been affected, so you can restore files with a few clicks.

Even more than that, Backup Insights is a powerful analytic tool. It can identify the cause of significant data churn occurring between backups; it can help you determine why backups are becoming larger in size than expected, and help you track trends over time.

This capability alone is a lifesaver for IT folks. It eliminates headaches, saves time and saves money.

Remember how I said each backup is a fully bootable machine? I’m not talking about merely recovering a single file here and there (although you can certainly do that too, as we’ve already established). With Datto’s instant virtualization, you can virtualize your entire business infrastructure locally or in the cloud in as little as 6 seconds.

So let’s say you’ve got a virus that has crippled not only your data but also an application that manages your entire operations. With Datto, you can spin up a recovery point in seconds, and even run the application from the cloud, from virtually anywhere – and with little to no loss in performance.

You can instantly virtualize anything that can be protected (physical systems and virtual, with agents or with agentless backups). You can virtualize physical with virtual BDR or even virtual with a physical BDR.

There’s an often-debated statistic in BCDR that claims that 77 percent of traditional backups fail during recovery. The origins of this stat are difficult to find, but no one can deny that restoring backups has historically been a nightmare. The files become corrupted and the backups are ruined.

Screenshot Backup Verification is another Datto-patented solution that addresses this problem and provides peace of mind about the backup-and-recovery process.

After a backup, the Datto appliance automatically virtualizes and test-boots the backup for integrity. It uses a combination of screen recognition and patented CPU register algorithms to verify that the backup is sound and can be recovered. This all happens in the background, with no system downtime needed. You can customize what you want the verification process to verify. And, the system will even send you an automated email to confirm that everything is A-OK.

As a managed-service provider, I personally love that my team and I can effectively monitor all our clients’ systems and be alerted at the first signs of a problem.

Ransomware is the devastating data threat that everyone saw coming but no one did anything about … except for Datto.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, here’s a quick explanation: Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts your data and demands payment in return for the decryption key. Infections usually arise from phishing emails with malicious attachments or links to malicious sites, then they spread across your computer network. In the case of WannaCry and NotPetya, infections also spread via vulnerabilities in unpatched Windows machines.

Datto understood the threat of ransomware early on, because it saw the destruction first-hand: more and more companies were recovering their backups due to ransomware infections, rather than other disasters.

Datto took the proactive step and added built-in ransomware detection to its BDR appliances. The system automatically detects an infection and immediately alerts the administrator to roll back to a safe recovery point.

Datto is thinking beyond the traditional scope of business continuity (i.e. backup devices) with products like DNA, its networking appliance with fully integrated 4G LTE failover to ensure businesses are always connected.

In addition to constantly enhancing its BCDR solutions, Datto is developing a number of innovations to help businesses not only prevent disaster, but also work more efficiently. For small businesses, Datto is making enterprise-grade data protection more affordable than ever. For enterprises, the company is providing a truly unmatched level of data protection for sprawling, global networks. Even the company’s file sync and share (FSS) platform—Datto Drive—is making headlines for its affordability and speed, not to mention the reliability of the Datto Cloud.

It only takes one call to Datto to experience their incredible customer service. And that’s true regardless of which office you’re dealing with around the world. Datto hires good people who clearly understand the value of good service. They truly care about you and your business.