Slide CEO: MSP Backup Is Overdue for Modernization

Backup and disaster recovery may be a mature technology category, but much of the infrastructure protecting MSP customers was designed for a far different threat landscape.

Michael Fass, co-founder and CEO of backup and disaster recovery provider Slide, argues that aging BCDR platforms can create security, recovery and operational risks for MSPs already contending with ransomware, regulatory pressure and increasingly complex customer environments.

In this Channel Insider Q&A, Fass discusses why MSPs should scrutinize the architecture behind their backup platforms, prioritize end-to-end encryption and recovery testing, and evaluate whether their vendors are keeping pace with modern security and partner expectations.

Most BCDR solutions in the MSP space were built 15 to 20 years ago. MSPs have a lot competing for their attention right now between AI, security, compliance, and client demands. Why should modernizing backup be a priority in the middle of all of that?

Your list is a good one, and I’d argue backup runs underneath all of it. Most BCDRs deployed by MSPs today weren’t built for this environment. As a striking example, almost none of them are encrypted end-to-end, which is a real vulnerability and a relic of older technology. 

That has direct consequences for the security and compliance pressures MSPs are under, and it shapes what happens when a client actually needs their data back. When a client deploys BCDR, it’s because they can’t afford downtime, and if the tool responsible for getting them back online was architected in a completely different era, that’s a problem you don’t want to discover in the middle of an outage.

The threat landscape looks nothing like it did when these platforms were designed. Ransomware is more sophisticated, AI is giving attackers new capabilities, environments are more complex, and the tolerance for downtime has basically shrunk to zero. 

MSPs are being asked to protect their clients’ assets wherever those assets live, using tools built for a much simpler version of that job. The MSPs prioritizing this now aren’t doing it because they have extra time. They’re doing it because they know that if backup fails, nothing else matters.

When you say the backup category needs to modernize, what does that actually mean in practice? What is fundamentally different about a modern approach versus what most MSPs are running today? 

I often ask people, “have you ever driven an electric car?” If they say, “yes,” I always ask, “do you remember the first time you stepped on the accelerator?”  

Usually people get it.  The truth is, a modern backup platform is much faster, more secure, and more efficient for an MSP to manage. More than any single feature, it is the entire experience that shifts. The workflow efficiencies that MSPs achieve with a modern stack are enormous. 

That matters because the MSPs we talk to are under pressure to do more with less. When they experience that difference for the first time, it changes how they think about backup entirely. You do not want to go back. 

And once you see what is possible, you start to realize how much you have been working around limitations you did not even know were there. That realization creates raving fans. 

A lot of vendors have added features over time on top of older foundations. What is the difference between modernizing around the edges of an existing platform versus building on a modern architecture from the ground up?

The foundation dictates what is possible. You can keep adding features on top of an older architecture, but the architecture still determines how fast the product can be, how secure it can be, and how quickly you can innovate. 

At some point, the foundation itself becomes the constraint. At Slide, we had the benefit of starting from scratch. We called up the most talented engineers we knew. We brought them together and asked them to build for the future. For almost two years, they built. Trying, failing, falling on their faces, getting back up, and, ultimately, building something fundamentally new. 

Every decision was made for today’s world, not the world that existed when the original platforms were designed. That matters because you cannot retrofit that kind of thinking. You cannot bolt modern security onto an old foundation and get the same result as building it in from day one. 

MSPs should care about what their platform is built on, not just what features it lists on a website, because the architecture is what determines whether the product can keep up with where the world is headed. 

The physical infrastructure behind most BCDR appliances has been slow to evolve. What does modern hardware actually bring to the table and why has the industry been slow to adopt it? 

Most of the BCDR applications deployed in the field today are still running on spinning disks, even though the rest of the technology world moved past that years ago. 

That matters because hardware directly affects performance. Modern hardware changes the equation entirely. Backups are faster, restores (onsite and offsite) are faster, and the appliance itself is smaller, quieter, and more efficient. 

To give you some perspective, a modern appliance can be slightly larger than an Apple Mac Studio and store up to 16 terabytes of data. That is a very different form factor than what MSPs have been used to. The industry has been slow to make this shift because the legacy platforms were designed, priced, and manufactured around a certain type of infrastructure. 

Changing that means rethinking the entire stack, and that is a hard decision for a company with a large install base. For MSPs, the question they should be asking is straightforward. What role does hardware play in protecting your clients’ data? If you’re not having that conversation, it’s worth considering. 

Encryption keeps coming up in conversations about backup readiness. What is the current state of encryption across BCDR deployments and why has it taken this long for the industry to address it? 

It alarms me that almost all of the physical BCDR devices we see deployed today are not encrypted. That means, if you are an MSP with a backup appliance sitting in a doctor’s office or a law firm, the chances are that anyone with physical access to that BCDR device can plug in and read the data in plain text with minimal effort. 

The reason is straightforward — when those platforms were built, encryption was primitive and expensive. That is a problem because the world has moved on. The modern standard should be full encryption end-to-end, where MSPs can manage and rotate encryption passphrases. Encryption should not be an upgrade. 

It should be the starting line, and MSPs should be asking their vendors where they stand on every one of those points.

Open APIs are increasingly seen as a marker of modern backup. Why does that matter to an MSP who is just trying to protect client data and get through the day?

It matters because MSPs do not work inside one tool. An application with an open API can connect into your other workflows using modern tooling. That is crucial for those MSPs I talk to who are being asked to do more with less.  Every modern MSP will need this.  Very few vendors can provide it.  

The pace of product development has changed across most of the technology industry. How should MSPs think about what modern development looks like in the backup category and what should they expect from their vendors on that front?

MSPs should expect their vendors to ship improvements continuously rather than in big version releases every few months that require downtime or migration planning. 

Every other category of software has moved past that model, and backup should not be the exception. MSPs are dealing with new challenges constantly, and they cannot afford to wait months for a fix or a feature they need today. 

That pace of development only happens when the architecture is built for it. If every update carries risk because you are touching systems that were built years ago by people who may not be at the company anymore, continuous improvement is not realistic. 

MSPs should ask their vendors two simple questions. How often do you ship updates, and how long does it take to go from partner feedback to a fix? The answers will tell you whether the vendor can actually keep up with the pace of the problems you are solving every day. 

MSPs hear from every vendor that they are channel-only and partner-first. Those phrases have lost a lot of meaning. What should MSPs actually look for to tell the difference between a vendor who means it and one who is just saying it?

Look at what they do — not what they say. Last week I personally spoke with several different MSPs whose BCDR vendor was literally circumventing them, going direct to the end-customer and cutting the MSP out of the business.  

Does your vendor lock you into multi-year agreements with cancellation fees and penalties or are they willing to earn your business every single month? When something breaks or your client is down, how quickly can you actually reach an expert who has the technical chops to get things back up and running?   

When you have a problem with your billing, how quickly does it get resolved?  Ask yourself:  is your vendor making decisions that strengthen your long-term partnership, or are they out for their own short-term gain?  MSPs have been around long enough to know the difference, and the best thing they can do is trust their judgment. 

If an MSP is evaluating their current BCDR stack today, what are the first questions they should be asking themselves to figure out whether they have a real gap? 

Start with encryption. Think about the backup appliance sitting in your client’s office right now and ask yourself whether that data is encrypted at rest. If it is not, I believe you have an enormous and totally unnecessary security gap right there. 

Then ask when you last tested a real recovery, both from the on-prem device and from the cloud.  Then look at how the platform fits into your day-to-day, and the day-to-day you wish to achieve in the future. 

And finally, take an honest look at the vendor relationship. Is the vendor invested in your success? Those questions will surface any gaps quickly. 

And once you see them, you are in a much better position to decide whether your current stack is ready for your present and future, or if it’s time to explore what modern backup actually looks like.