¿Cuál es la mejor manera de negociar y gestionar contratos con proveedores de copias de seguridad y recuperación?

Along with different vendors, it is also important to list down various backup options like agentless backup and agent based backup etc, then understand the pros and cons of each option, basis client requirement, volume etc.. This enables you prioritise the 4-5 options from the long list. Then you can start negotiations with vendors to choose the best from there

For any contract negotiation, it is essential to first understand your requirements - as true for backup and recovery as for any other tech requirement. Key point is not to be too dogmatic on your requirements - and learn what vendors can do. Often vendors provide additional add-on services, which you may not have thought of, but turn out to be really useful. For example some backup solutions also bundle in anti ransomware protection mechanisms - where encryption can be stopped in its tracks, and the data automatically restored to pre-encryption status.

Before vendor shopping, map your backup and recovery needs! Volume, frequency, data types – know what needs protecting. Set recovery goals: how fast (RTO), how fresh (RPO). Security, compliance, budget – don't forget the constraints. With a clear roadmap, you'll compare vendors like pros, choosing the perfect fit for a successful, secure future.

Antes de começar a procurar fornecedores, você precisa ter uma compreensão clara de suas necessidades de backup e recuperação, como o volume, a frequência e o tipo de dados necessários para fazer backup e recuperar, os objetivos de tempo de recuperação (RTOs) e objetivos de ponto de recuperação (RPOs) Você precisa atender aos padrões de segurança e conformidade que precisa seguir, bem como ao orçamento e aos recursos disponíveis. Isso ajudará você a definir o escopo, as especificações e as expectativas do seu contrato de backup e recuperação, além de comparar e avaliar diferentes fornecedores com base em seus recursos, custos e níveis de serviço.

Negociar e gerenciar contratos com fornecedores de backup e recuperação exige uma abordagem cuidadosa e planejada. Aqui estão algumas dicas para ajudá-lo a conseguir o melhor acordo e garantir que o seu negócio tenha a proteção adequada: Defina os requisitos: Antes de começar a negociar, defina os requisitos do seu negócio para backup e recuperação, incluindo o tipo e quantidade de dados que precisa ser protegida. Pesquise vários fornecedores: Compare diferentes fornecedores de backup e recuperação e encontre o que melhor atende às suas necessidades e seu orçamento. Revise o contrato: Antes de assinar o contrato, revise-o cuidadosamente e tenha certeza de que todos os seus requisitos são abordados.

You should aim to get a fair and flexible contract that reflects your backup and recovery requirements, protects your interests, and allows for changes or adjustments as needed based on required SLA : 1. Vendor Certification & Maturity level 2. Security and privacy 3. Redundancy 4. Bandwidth 5. Response time 6. Nonperformance clauses in service-level agreements 7. Disaster recovery 8. Access to an online data backup provider's facility

As a fintech professional, I recognize the critical importance of negotiating and managing contracts with backup and recovery vendors to ensure the resilience of our operations. To navigate this process effectively, it is imperative to establish a clear scope of services, conduct thorough vendor assessments, and negotiate flexible contract terms that align with our evolving technological needs. By emphasizing robust service level agreements (SLAs), transparent and flexible pricing structures, and regular performance reviews, we aim to create partnerships that not only meet but exceed our business continuity requirements.

Negotiating and managing contracts with backup and recovery vendors require careful planning and communication to ensure you get the best value for your investment while mitigating risks. Clearly outline your organization's backup and recovery needs. Identify critical data, recovery time objectives (RTOs), recovery point objectives (RPOs), compliance requirements, and any specific features or functionalities required.Explore the market to identify potential vendors that meet your requirements. Consider factors like reputation, expertise, technology, scalability

To manage contracts with backup vendors effectively: Define specific backup requirements. Research and shortlist reputable vendors. Request proposals focusing on service scope and cost. Negotiate fair pricing and contract terms. Establish clear SLAs for performance standards. Ensure vendor compliance with security and legal standards. Review contracts for obligations and risks. Maintain open communication for issue resolution. Conduct regular performance reviews. Implement contingency plans for service disruptions.

I would add the following: - Within your environment, it is necessary to classify which data is more or less critical for the company's sustainability; - Those VMs is as important as the information itself. Therefore, a more frequent snapshot OS images is recommended. - RTO and RPO, in practice, are not so tangible, except for some regulation. The most important thing is to understand which applications may or may not lose data, the impact of unavailability and how long it takes to restore. - I suggest making 3 to 4 backups, in multiple platforms, one of them immutable, for instance: Local Backup, Cloud and Infra segregated from the current environment.

some of the best ways to get started: 1. Assess the needs 2. Research and compare current market trends. 3. Familiarize yourself with common backup and recovery contract terms

It is crucial to make a dive into a potential vendors' business before you decide to negotiate contract terms. Crucial things to understand: - Is it a mature vendor with an effective system of motivating and managing IT specialists, or is it a new company with not yet established processes - Do they subcontract technical specialists or have a more or less sable team - Have they already gained some reputation in the industry and could provide some references Even for backup and recovery needs vendors might play a crucial role in your company's reputation, effect deadlines, strategic targets, and, eventually, profit

Once you defined the data sources you have to backup, find the right vendor to do it for you, I would recommend to have at least 2 backups for all your data, one of them can be cloud, other can be physical tapes ( yes, it is still working ) and another one can be additional data center. Choose 2 or 3 from the above. When it comes to vendor selection, if you are a heavy data generator company, try to have a fixed price with the cloud vendor and negotiate it, this way you can better manage your budget, If you do not generate a lot of data, you can have pricing by storage, which the vendors like better. As always, choose a reliable vendor, who will be there for you when you will need, conduct a trial at least once a year and good luck

We need to make a small lab before we sign the SLA and pay the budget for the backup and replication plan and if the solution meet the IT exceptation, we can then proceed with the solution.

There should be a convenient way for the client to review daily performance - did all job complete successfully, are we meeting our planned backup windows, were any interventions required, have any devices failed more than should be expected (failure can sometimes be due to a server is not available or powered down), will the vendor commit to SLA or only SLOs?

It is very important to sort these negotiation elements from the highest priority to the lowest one, taking into consideration that all of them are key to negotiation success. I think you cannot be alone; you will need a team to prepare for negotiation (Legal, Procurement, tech, Business areas and so on).

Clearly outline your organization’s specific requirements for backup and recovery. Understand the scope, data types, recovery time objectives (RTO), and recovery point objectives (RPO) to effectively communicate your needs.

For negtiations, you should minimise excitement and pay attention to detail in their offers. A backup and restoration strategy could be provided on a pay per monthly basis and you take it as a pay per quarter or pay per year which can lead to a lot of unplanned expenditures.

Contract Duration. Pricing. Service Level Agreement (SLA): define clear metrics for RTO, RPO, uptime, data integrity, and support response times. Negotiate penalties for missed SLA targets to hold the vendor accountable. Data security and compliance. Termination Clauses. Dispute Resolution.

Drafting a clear time bound contract term along with penalty, if you have physical backup that needs to move to cloud backup, is very essential. In manier situations the backup volume migration to cloud takes back seat causing delays, this could result in a situation where you may not be able to bill it to the client if your billability is dependent on the backup on COS...

Monitor performance: 1. Service Level Agreements (SLAs). 2. Data integrity. 3. Security. Maintain compliance: 1. Data privacy regulations 2. Internal policies. 3. Active communication and collaboration. 4. Regular meetings. 5. Open communication. 6. Documentation. 7. Contract review and renewal- Proactive reviews and negotiation preparation.

Once you have the right vendors ( you need at least 2 ) and before signing a contract, you have to make sure they have the right technology in place, go and visit their premises and talk to the operational manager, ask them to tell you about a case where he needed to restore old data and what they did. ask the vendor to send you their processes and enforcement tools, The security technology and procedures are very important! The vendor should have 24*7 SOC in place. If you are good with the impression, you can go one and initiate the contract. You should specify the Backup frequency, each vendor should backup the data too, the restore time and add at least 1 trial every year to check the vendor's readiness.

At this step, coming up with quantifiable and measurable performance keys is important in keeping track of the contract execution as agreed upon with the vendor. Maintaining a back and forth communication throughout the contract execution period will also ensure maximum understanding and delivery from the outsourced backup and recovery vendor.

We need to keep in touch with the solution vendor, prepare a plan for future if we need to add additional site, make a communication via telephone, mail, conference with the solution provider for any updates releases or support, attend webinars and conferences and read new articles about new methadology for backup and recovery.

The goal of any negotiation is to achieve an agreement that delivers the most possible value to you and your counterpart, trying to leave the least value on the table. After the agreement is reached, it must be monitored to ensure that value is actually delivered. SLA's are a key element for this and you should be able to measure them by yourself.

Few other points to consider are : 1. References and case studies 2. Support and maintenance 3. Scalability 4. Exit strategy 5. Conduct a risk assessment 6. Plan for disaster recovery 7. Consider data privacy and security 8. Establish clear communication channels 9. Monitor industry trends

Monitoring performance is crucial, and I recommend handling it carefully as it determines whether the business can endure or not. In addition to monitoring performance carefully, it's essential to establish comprehensive performance metrics and KPIs to gauge the effectiveness of various aspects within the business. Regularly assess these metrics to identify potential areas for improvement, optimize processes, and ensure the overall health of the organization. This proactive approach not only enhances operational efficiency but also contributes to the long-term sustainability and success of the business.

Monitoring performance is crucial, and it is more crucial to find out and compare the way you are used to monitor performance in the company, and what are the ways of a potential vendor. Things to pay special attention here: - Do you share a common working culture, which you can see for example in the way they communicate during the negotiations - Do you use the same tools and systems, or are they compatible - Who will be the central point of contact from the vendor's side and make reports, and will you have a responsible manager from your side - All the roles in the process from both vendor and your company should be assessed, defined and assigned to people before the start.

Today, I believe it is more important than ever to assure your data protection plan includes a cyber component. Will your backups be kept in an immutable format? Should it be needed to you have an alternate recovery location? Will the applications used to protect your data be compatible with your existing technologies? If not, do you have historic data that might need to be recovered and how will your vendor assure that it can be recovered? Will there be mechanisms in place to limit unexpected overage charges - nothing worse than finding out after careful analysis that your backup volume is actually twice what your vendors tools projected but your on the hook for this new volume.

This should be covered in the client and /or providers relationship strategy . There are frameworks that have already globally defined best practices to be followed

Stay away from Windows-based solutions. Particularly "modern" ransomware "flavors" will encrypt them without a hickup. In fact, they will be seeking them out with less than honorable intent.

One other thing i have found out is their customer care services and strategy. Even when you have identified the technologies that they use, you could probably need guidance and confirmations in tye status of the back ups, or even navigation of the technology as this technology could be deployed in a different environment and even with the help of Artificial intelligence, sometimes you could require real personel to walk you through

Best way to manage contracts and negotiate would be based on organizations requirements compliance rules set by your organization.

You need to do a requirements analysis of all you data needs then get a list of vendors and see which one better suits your budget and your need then only can you make an informed decision.

Create channels of communication: Specify protocols and escalation procedures for communication in order to swiftly handle issues and keep a cooperative relationship throughout the duration of the contract. By incorporating this element into negotiations, organizations can foster a strong partnership with backup and recovery vendors while safeguarding their data and ensuring a resilient business continuity plan.