Every MSP sells backup. Very few can prove that the backup will actually bring a customer back.
For years, a green dashboard was good enough. Jobs completed, retention met, storage under control. Customers rarely asked for more, and nobody wanted to find out the hard way whether a full restore would work.
That has changed. Boards, auditors and cyber insurers have stopped asking whether an organisation has backups. They now ask whether it can prove it can recover, and how quickly. NIS2 calls for business continuity, backup management and disaster recovery measures. DORA asks financial entities for documented backup policies, defined restore procedures and regular testing of both. Your customers will pass those questions straight to you.
We wrote recently about why a backup is just a promise until it's proven recoverable. This post looks at the next step for MSPs: turning recovery assurance into a service your customers will pay for.
A completed backup job tells you that data was copied. It does not tell you that the system will boot, that the application will start, or that the business can be back online within the agreed recovery time.
Recoveries fail for reasons a backup report never shows:
Applications that depend on systems nobody remembered to include
Restore points that are complete but already compromised
Recovery runbooks written years ago and never exercised
Recovery times that have never been measured, only assumed
At the same time, attackers have learned to go after the backup environment before they trigger encryption. When an incident happens, the question is no longer whether there is a copy. It is whether there is a clean copy that can be restored, in the right order, fast enough.
Most organisations find out whether their recovery works during an incident. That is the most expensive possible time to learn.
For most MSPs, restore testing is a cost. It takes engineering hours, it is hard to schedule and the result rarely reaches the customer in a form they value. So it happens once a year, if at all.
Cristie Recovery Assurance changes the economics. Restores are tested automatically and every result is documented, so recovery stops being a hidden effort and becomes a deliverable your customer can see.
That opens the door to services you can put on your price list:
Verified recovery as a tier above backup. Offer the same protection, plus regular proof that it restores.
SLAs backed by evidence. Commit to recovery times you have measured, not estimated.
Audit and insurance support. Hand customers the reports their auditors and insurers are asking for.
Cyber recovery as a service. A controlled, repeatable recovery process your customers can rely on after an attack.
The conversation with your customer shifts from "how much storage do you need?" to "how fast do you need to be back, and how will you prove it?". That is a more valuable conversation for both sides.
Cristie Recovery Assurance is included as standard in Cristie Recovery Solution (CRS). The whole solution is installed locally in your own environment, behind your own firewall, with no external dependencies.
01. Automated restore testing
Restores run on a schedule, not when someone finds the time. Every test checks that systems and data come back as expected.
02. Continuous verification
Recovery processes are verified continuously, so you find a failing restore before an incident does.
03. Orchestrated disaster and cyber recovery
Recovery runs as a controlled, repeatable process, including CVP-to-CVP: from cloud, virtual or physical to cloud, virtual or physical. Cleanroom environments are supported, as are customers who operate dark sites.
04. Audit-ready reporting
Every test leaves a record you can share with a customer, an auditor or an insurer. That record is what turns a technical check into a service.
A new service only works if it fits the way you already run your business. Cristie Recovery Solution was designed for MSPs from the start:
Pay-per-use. Minimal upfront investment. Your costs grow with the customers you sign.
Self-service portal. Automated reporting, end-customer self-service and automated billing across all your tenants, branded with your own logo and colours.
One delivery. Hardware, software, support, Cristie Recovery Assurance and the self-service portal from a single supplier.
Zero Trust by design. CRS powered by Rubrik is built on Rubrik's Zero Trust architecture, with immutable backups, logical isolation and strict role-based access.
Cristie Recovery Solution is designed, assembled and supported in Europe. You work with Cristie's certified engineers locally, in your own language. When an incident escalates, you also have access to Rubrik Level 3 support, Rubrik's Ransomware Response Team and priority access to Cristie's Disaster Recovery and Ransomware Recovery teams.
For an MSP, that matters twice: once for your own operations, and once in every sales conversation where your customer asks who stands behind the service.
Backup → proves that a copy exists
Cristie Recovery Assurance → proves that the copy comes back
Your service → turns that proof into something your customers can show their board, their auditor and their insurer
Ask your next customer when they last restored a complete system from backup, and how they proved that it worked.
If the answer is "we haven't", you have just found your next service.
Recovery you can prove. Made in Europe for partners.
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