Acronis Cyber Platform Enables Comprehensive Integration Across Connect Wise Solutions

Established in 1982, ConnectWise provides operational software that enables over 27,000 technology and managed services providers (MSPs) in more than 65 countries to run virtually every aspect of their business. The company’s products address business management, remote monitoring and management, remote control and access, quote and proposal automation, and cybersecurity risk assessments. ConnectWise’s core offerings are designed to simplify the operations of an MSP, saving them time and money

Their core products include:

• ConnectWise Manage, which provides solutions for help desk, contracts and agreements, billing, sales and marketing, project management, and time tracking.
• ConnectWise Automate, remote monitoring, and management solution that solves for things like device management, patching and updates, monitoring and alerting, and backup routines.
• ConnectWise Control, a remote control solution that provides help desk technicians with tools to deliver remote issue resolution and unattended machine management capabilities.

Several years ago, ConnectWise determined that deep integration with key vendors and partners could extend the value proposition of their software platform to MSPs. Integrations would improve operational efficiencies and save MSPs time at all phases of interaction with their end customers.

Acronis saw this opportunity to provide ConnectWise’s MSPs with the right toolset and services to deploy its backup software. This led to Acronis taking the lead in an integration development effort, leveraging its previously private APIs and providing ConnectWise MSPs with a comprehensive solution for data migration, data management, and data protection in all three deployment options: on-premises, hybrid, and in the hyperscale cloud. What resulted was a set of tight integrations between the ConnectWise products noted above and the Acronis Cyber Cloud Platform. Specifically:

• With the Acronis Cyber Cloud extension for ConnectWise Manage, users can provision services to new and existing customers, automate billing, monitor and automatically create tickets for failed backup / recovery operation and quota-related issues, monitor backup statuses, and seamlessly fit the service into existing help desk operations through the ConnectWise Manage console.
• With the Acronis Cyber Cloud extension for ConnectWise Automate, MSPs can enable automated backup and anti-ransomware protection for all physical and virtual machines managed through ConnectWise Automate, monitor alerts and activities on dashboards, or use built-in reports to automatically create tickets for specific alerts.
• With the Acronis Cyber Cloud extension for ConnectWise Control, users are able to remotely install and update backup agents on individual machines or groups of machines, apply backup plans and Active Protection plans to customer machines, and monitor a device’s status through the ConnectWise Control console.

According to Jeff Bishop, ConnectWise’s Chief Product Officer, “Integrations to the ConnectWise platform are extremely important to our MSPs. The integration between Acronis Cyber Cloud and ConnectWise Control is the first such integration. It looks fantastic and our MSPs find a ton of value in it.”

With Acronis’ decision to open up its APIs to the public (and provide corresponding software development kits and sample code) through the launch of the Acronis Cyber Platform, what initially started as an Acronis-led integration effort with ConnectWise has evolved into a two-way exchange of APIs and integrations.

By using the Acronis Cyber Platform, ConnectWise has taken the lead on a development effort to integrate Acronis into its ConnectWise Marketplace solution. ConnectWise Marketplace is an e-commerce platform for acquiring third-party solutions offered by ConnectWise, which supports both license and usage-based purchasing and billing the growing complexity, cost, and security concerns that their customers and their business face. For ConnectWise, taking advantage of the Acronis Cyber Platform provides the following tangible benefits for its MSPs:

• Saves time. Bringing these two platforms together through a single management console, MSPs are able to save time through an integrated systems engagement experience wherein they interact with both platforms at the same time.
• Simplifies the purchasing and billing process. Through the ConnectWise Marketplace integration, billing automatically occurs at the end of the month via APIs. Additionally, MSPs can easily transact with Acronis without signing additional agreements. Going forward, this will be the only way to purchase Acronis through ConnectWise.
• Enhances visibility. ConnectWise MSPs manage their business and customers through their remote monitoring and management or
  remote control software. With these platform integrations, MSPs gain additional visibility, particularly into security around backup and disaster recovery. This gives them better insights into their security posture and allows them to quickly make a change.

Ultimately for ConnectWise, the integrations with Acronis translates into growth. Bishop concludes:
“Products that are deeply integrated simply make more headway. We are seeing steady growth with Acronis as a function of our joint development efforts and we fully expect this to continue.”

Acronis leads the world in cyber protection — solving safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges with innovative backup, security, disaster recovery, and enterprise file sync and share solutions that run in hybrid cloud environments: on-premises, in the cloud, or at the edge. Enhanced by AI technologies and blockchain-based authentication, Acronis protects all data, in any environment, including physical, virtual, cloud, mobile workloads, and applications. With dual headquarters in Switzerland and Singapore, Acronis is a global organization that is trusted by 80% of Fortune 1,000 companies.

Learn more at acronis.com.