Asigra Inc., a leading cloud backup, recovery, and restore software provider responded to the growing problem of unfair pricing in the backup and recovery market with the industry's first and only recovery-based business model. The patent-pending Asigra Recovery License Model (RLM) is a game-changer for the backup space. The recovery-based pricing model presents a new paradigm that decouples backup and recovery licenses to bring pricing in line with the true value of backup – data recovery.

Technology has enabled business model revolutions in many markets that are fairer to customers, allowing significant savings and better overall value. This has resulted in pricing overhauls in several markets, including the music industry's shift from albums to per-song pricing; telecom's move from per-minute to per-second billing, and the auto insurance industry's Pay-as-You-Drive (PAYD) performance-based pricing as an alternative to monthly premiums based solely on actuarial statistics. The Asigra Recovery License Model gives organizations the option of selecting a fair pricing model based on how little they recover. The model is enabled by technology and follows what many experts agree is an evolving movement toward performance-based pricing that aligns with the value derived by the customer.

"Business model revolutions have been proven to obliterate how buyers consume goods and services. A perfect example is Amazon's Internet-based consumption model which turned retail on its head or iTunes which changed the way we shop for and purchase music. This 'Amazon Effect' is a business model shift that happens when a marketplace adopts a new approach to consumption," said Steve Duplessie, Founding Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "This is happening in IT and Asigra's Recovery License Model is one such example that could cause an upheaval in the backup and recovery space."

Asigra recovery-based pricing gives IT professionals the ability to better control backup and recovery costs, even as organizational data grows rapidly. With this approach, fees are based on a Recovery Performance Score that is calculated over a 12-month period (every 6 months in the first year). A waiver is provided for the single largest recovery event in any licensing term and only successful recoveries are included in the calculations. This allows customers who recover less to pay less, and costs are capped so customers never pay to recover more than 25% of their data which provides predictable costs.

"The traditional pricing models that currently dominate the software market are obsolete and no longer match products' cost to the business value they deliver. Software buyers are wondering how technology market shifts such as social computing, mobility, big data, and cloud will affect the way they buy software. They hope that the technology revolution will bring greater commercial flexibility and fairness, but they see the old guard oligopoly fighting back against the rebel forces of change,"¹ wrote Duncan Jones, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc. "Unless you take steps now to fix your software contracts, your incumbent vendors will eat up your budget, taking advantage of obsolete software models and pricing structures."¹

Video: Databarracks Implements Asigra Recovery License Model – http://youtu.be/bKTRFwBqk8w

Backup Cost Containment

With industry standard pricing based on backup capacity, costs increase as data volumes grow. The Asigra Recovery License Model is based on a low, limited recovery cost so that expenditures remain low even as data volumes rise. Those who adopt this pricing model can anticipate immediate savings of 40% and long term savings of 60% to 70% as a result of separating backup and recovery license costs and associating price with recovery performance. The Asigra Recovery Tracker, proprietary analytics tracking software, generates actionable information to enable performance-based savings and more user control on how customers are billed for backup software/services. The revolutionary model keeps backup and recovery costs under control over time, even with the trend of rapid data growth showing no signs of slowing down.

The Asigra Recovery License Model is a response to customer demand for pricing that prioritizes data recovery over the backup of data, returning cost control to organizations. Interest in recovery-based pricing was highlighted by a recent Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) survey of IT managers and/or staff who influence backup and recovery purchasing decisions. The research revealed a number of findings related to data recovery, including the fact that most of the respondents attributed higher IT costs to rising volumes of data (data capacity). Survey respondents also indicated that they anticipate an increase in backup and recovery costs over the next five years as these volumes grow.

According to Mike Osborne, Director, Phoenix IT Services, "Software pricing has recently become a topic of much debate, especially in today's mobile and cloud technology era. Traditional pricing models in widespread use no longer match product/service cost to the value they deliver. In no market category is this more true than in the area of data protection. Finally, the technology to achieve performance-based pricing for data backup and recovery is here."

"Across the technology spectrum, more vendors are moving away from established pricing models to alternatives based on performance and overall value," said David Farajun, CEO, Asigra. "The backup and recovery market now enters a new era to address the industry value proposition on data recovery…not backup. The Asigra Recovery License Model introduces a very clear pricing differentiator based on recovery that provides both immediate and long-term value to the customer on a significant scale."

Industry Quotes

"Traditional backup industry licensing models have limited the ability of organizations to be proactive in controlling data recovery related costs. This has been a cost control roadblock for many enterprises that are experiencing a rise in costs based on rising data volumes. Recovery-based pricing promises to offer a remedy and should ignite debate among technology users."

Robert Amatruda, Research Director, Data Protection and Recovery, IDC

"The explosion in data growth, accelerated by the growth in social media, rich multimedia content as well as the proliferation of cloud and mobile technologies, has put increasing pressure on backup administrators worldwide to constrain costs. Recovery-based pricing is a potential game-changer for the data protection industry, breaking the mold of traditional backup software pricing. While this may be disruptive for some vendors, it can be a serious win for organizations under assault by growing volumes of data and budget constraints."

Dave Simpson, Senior Analyst, 451 Research

"There is an old cliche in IT circles - people don't care about backup, they care about recovery. Legacy backup software licensing schemes based on the total capacity of data backed up, are placing an undue burden on data center environments trying to contend with the continuous onslaught of data growth. The Recovery License Model is a more forward thinking approach as it directly ties the investment in data protection to recovery operations rather than the total amount of data backed up. Under this model, organizations only pay based on the frequency of recovery and what's more, through automated tracking technology, insights may be gleaned to help organizations reduce the rate at which recovery operations are performed - resulting in still lower costs."

Colm Keegan, Senior Analyst, Storage Switzerland

"Demand Pricing That Matches Business Value – The Radical Sourcing Trend for 2013", Forrester Research, January 4, 2013 (1)

Pricing and Availability

Asigra Cloud Backup and the Recovery License Model are available immediately. For more information contact 416-736-8111 ext. 1457 or visit www.asigra.com/recoverylicensemodel.

To learn more about Asigra, visit: www.asigra.com