ADP and Khipu Networks partner to offer data protection

Assured Data Protection (ADP) and Khipu Networks have formed a partnership to provide customers with increased backup, recovery and data resilience options.

The firms will combine ADP’s cloud data protection and Rubrik expertise with Khipu’s knowledge of security and infrastructure to provide a solution that will protect customers.

The partnership emerged after a successful pilot project at Welsh further education institute Bridgend College. Having demonstrated they could work together, adding data protection to Khipu’s security and networking services, the managed service providers (MSPs) have decided to keep it going.

Sam Blackburn, business and channel manager at ADP, said one of his tasks was to build a channel network and get its data resilience skills into the hands of partners that would benefit from adding the combined offering to the options they put in front of customers.

“It’s [a case] of looking at the security VARs [value-added resellers] and MSPs who don’t have this in their toolkit to take it to market, and changing the message from just that traditional infrastructure play of backups or disaster recovery as a service to that cyber resiliency play to then make sure that security VARs and MSPs have a place at the table to go and speak to their customers and prospects on new service lines that they are currently missing out on,” he said.

Harry Hassan, cyber security consultant at Khipu Networks, said it recognised the benefits of working with an industry specialist that could add to its proposition.

We are “the only royal warrant holder as a ‘Network Security Provider’ to the Royal Household e, so we are very well equipped, qualified, certified and accredited with what we like to think is best-of-breed solution partners like Palo Alto, Aruba and Rubrik. A lot of our clients are in the public space and private space...a lot of what we do is always going to be around managed services. What ADP does for us is bring that managed service 24/7 and make sure that they are best of breed,” he said.

Blackburn said the market was evolving and customers wanted to talk about data resilience, moving beyond straightforward backups and disaster recovery, and the channel needed to keep pace and meet the needs of the large number of users that are reaching out for support.

“It’s anyone whose data is critical to them. Anybody who has an IT team that is stretched and needs that extra support. The customers who are looking to get a more robust disaster recovery service to look at having a more robust cyber recovery service as well. That’s where we want to play and the customers we work with,” he said.

Blackburn said the partnership with Khipu was still in the early stages but there were signs it was delivering results: “This is still a very new relationship. We’ve got a great pipeline with Khipu and hopefully it’s going to grow from strength to strength.”