Global first for Sydney Symantec partner

Symantec has chosen Sydney-based services partner Insentra to deliver the first global pilot for its new IT Risk Assurance Service.

"ANZ was chosen as the first region and, as ANZ partner of the year three times running, we were chosen for the pilot," said Ronnie Altit, Insentra's managing director.

"The global product manager approached us because he knows us and he knows we have done complex Symantec projects in the past."

The IT Risk Assurance Service bundles Insentra's services with Symantec's Disaster Recovery Advisor tool to proactively monitor DR readiness and configuration risks in infrastructure.

"The majority of organisations are only 70% confident of DR," Altit told CRN. "If you have confidence DR is actually working then you don't need to prepare for weeks for a DR test."

The managing director said that the service suits organisations that are considering outsourcing its infrastructure: "Before outsourcing they can test the service against the SLA to ensure it meets their requirements."

Inversely, outsourcers can take advantage of the service to test themselves against customer benchmarks.

"This is all delivered entirely through the channel. It gives both traditional integrators and MSPs a very powerful tool kit," said Altit.

The new offering consists of three components, according to Altit – an initial "proof of concept" advisory service, an enablement service for full scale implementation, and an optional Symantec managed service once the tools are in place.

"The advisory service is for customers that say, 'That's too good to be true, let me see it in action'," said Altit. "We select one critical system and do an assessment on that to show the true value of the tool."

"Then the enablement service rolls it out to the other systems. And finally the client can opt for a Symantec managed service for ongoing assurance, or they can use the tools themselves."

Altit added that configuration risks are prevalent in many organisations.

"Even with rigorous change management it's impossible to keep DR and prod in sync," said Altit. "This tool can even be used to keep an eye on test and production."

Insentra is a "services only" partner for Symantec and Altit said that it does not "resell any Symantec products".

"The service is fully available to the rest of the channel in a non-threatening and non-competitive manner."

Insentra, based in the northern Sydney suburb of St Leonards, is a current CRN Fast50 company.