Datto Cloud Continuity Reviews

I used to use the solution when I used to work for an MSP for whom I used to deploy the product for the clients. Speaking about the use cases, the product is usually used for ransomware prevention. My company had not dealt with any hardware fall downs. The cost-benefit ratio of Datto Cloud Continuity is determined by how much a user's assets are worth or how frequently the company of its user has been a victim of ransomware attacks, which is usually 40 percent of the time for most of the small and medium businesses. The total cost of a user's assets versus a 40 percent risk that a user could lose everything is the area where Datto Cloud Continuity's cost-benefit analysis fits in properly, as it serves as a recovery control.

The fact that Datto Cloud Continuity is not cheap is one of the aspects that I don't like about the product, making it an area where improvements are required.

I have experience with Datto Cloud Continuity for seven to ten years. I am a customer of the tool. My company has a partnership with the product.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

My company deals with organizations where 30 to 500 people use the product. My company caters to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses where the product gets used.

I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

The product's initial setup phase is easy. The deployment can't be done with one click, so it is not a super difficult process. I rate the product's initial setup phase an eight on a scale of one to ten.

My company requires two people to take care of the product's deployment phase, but from a health and safety perspective, it all depends on the size of the units being handled. To rack and mount the product, you need two people.

The solution is deployed on a private cloud from VMware.

The solution can be deployed in under four hours.

I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price.

Speaking about how the product is deployed in my company's business operations, I would say that it is an appliance with a critical infrastructure.

In terms of data protection capabilities, the tool's ability to boot a device and have a separate network has saved the day for many of our company's clients who use the solution. If you have a collection of old servers, and if one of the old servers dies, you could be dead in the water if you cannot locally boot a server. Even the new gears in place can have an issue if people are not spending money on robust hardware tools, and replace them. It is necessary to have the local boot options if and when you have a hardware issue.

The product brings the most value in the area of virtual boot when it comes to disaster recovery since it can boot up a version of the server from before an incident, which is helpful and allows your company to have a lower RPO or recovery point objective. It makes a big difference if you can have an RPO in hours rather than in days.

The image-based backup functionality has revolutionized and impacted our company recovery time objectives since we deal in hours and not in days.

The interface of the product is intuitive. I like the product's functionality that provides the ability to see everything at a glance, along with the alerting feature.

Maintenance is required since certain drives die at times. In general, maintenance is required to deal with dead RAMs and hard drives.

The former clients with small offices and the old Linux servers that used to die in production used to boot such servers with the help of Datto Cloud Continuity. The aforementioned process allows the clients to continue running their business while buying time to get replacement hardware, making a big difference that helps them reduce potential data loss or downtime. The local boot provided by the product saved the day for many of our company's clients.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

Though the tool is not inexpensive, it provides enterprise-level protection from ransomware.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

We use Datto Cloud Continuity for backup computers for end users. We download an agent from the data web page, install it on the client’s computer, and start creating the backup image. Later, it synchronizes with the cloud for the backup process. 

The platform provides a faster backup process. We can go to the cloud, get the information with an image, and it starts with the process. It prevents the loss of a lot of files and folders.

The product's scalability features could be even better.

I rate Datto Cloud Continuity’s stability an eight out of ten.

The platform is scalable. Although, it has little room for improvement. We have 15 users for it in our organization. I rate its scalability a nine out of ten.

I have never contacted Datto Cloud Continuity’s technical support team. Sometimes, when the agent or services stop working, I restart the computer.

Datto Cloud Continuity’s initial setup process is easy. I visit the web page and look into knowledge-based documentation on how to install the product with the help of an agent. It also provides a link where I can find the agent. Later, I have to install it.

I rate Datto Cloud Continuity a seven out of ten. I advise others to visit the service settings inside the computer in case they encounter backing-up issues.

The solution's reliability is one of its most valuable features. The restoration of data with Datto Cloud Continuity may not be as easy when compared to other solutions. I believe that in the past three years since I took over the contract from someone else, the system has only failed once, and that was due to an issue with the server device itself. The problem was that it could not communicate with the server.

I'm switching my clients to Axon from Datto because Datto's price scheme has changed since Kaseya bought them. They are now providing the device instead of selling it, while wanting their users to sign a three-year contract, and this is something which my clients don't like. However, my clients don't mind if they are made to sign a one-year contract instead, and this is something that Datto needs to consider.

I am using Datto Cloud Continuity, and my clients use the solution.

It is a very stable solution.

To achieve scalability, one must change the device before wanting to go on a larger scale, which means that proper planning for expansion must be considered during the initial quote to avoid the need to re-sign a new contract later on. Such things are to be considered nowadays since they supply hardware as well. Datto Cloud Continuity will supply a two-terabyte backup device for free, with a three-year contract if you require a backup device. However, if you need to scale up due to growth, you cannot simply scale up the device and will need to change the device, which becomes a pain, as you need to sign a new contract while being liable for your old hardware. Additionally, the three-year contract restricts scalability, and it would be preferable to purchase equipment and sign a contract monthly or yearly.

In general, I find that Datto's technical support is fast, although it depends on your question type. Since I use more than just the product, including Autotask and Datto RMM, the response time varies based on the level of urgency. Typically, you can expect a response within 24 hours if it's normal support. However, sometimes their replies can be invasive. They may direct you to an article to read, asking follow-up questions if necessary instead of allowing you to speak to someone directly. With the purchase of Datto by Kaseya, it's become easier to speak with engineers. If you have a good representative, it's easy to get support since they will connect you to a conference call with a technical person who can take over your machine and check it. Also, they'll be online with you in a couple of hours if it's an emergency. Datto's support may not be the strongest compared to other companies, but they are fast to respond to emergencies.

I don't know much about the setup process for this solution since I took over the device from another MSP. The client didn't want to continue doing business with them, and since I was already a partner, we managed to transfer the device, and I took over the responsibility for the billing and everything related to it. So I don't know much about the setup process, as it was already pretty much set up when I took over. Getting information about the solution was difficult because when you buy from them, you receive full training, including an onboarding process, which I did not get since I took it over. So, I guess the initial setup might be easy because of the onboarding process.

I like the overall solution, but I dislike the fact that signing a three-year contract is required.

Comparing Datto Cloud Continuity with similar products, I rate the overall solution a seven or eight out of ten.

I have a company called The Automated Method. I don't use the tech—I recommend it to others—so I'm an influencer if you will. We have partnerships with Datto and other vendors. I have hands-on experience with solutions but I don't physically set anything up anymore. 

Software as a service has become normalized in the last five to seven years. Before that, companies were still using local servers to do everything. They had racks up to the ceiling with all the blinking lights and networking hardware. However, on-prem solutions are increasingly obsolete. Ten years ago, people would kill their businesses if they didn't have a local server backed up properly. 

Datto pulled many businesses out of the fire because you only needed to subscribe to the service, install the utility on the server, and Datto would back up the entire imprint of the server onto the device and parallel it in the cloud.

If you have a hardware backup, what would happen if the hard drive crashed or someone stole the server? People actually stole servers back in the day because they're valuable. It could be a break-in or a disgruntled employee. Datto lets you boot up a server in the cloud five minutes after a server gets stolen or the building burns down. That's why Datto is amazing. 

Datto has strong competition, but they succeeded in linking their service to the device. It's easy for managed service providers to sell and upsell products using their portal and the remote monitoring and maintenance.

Datto's only shortcoming is RMM. They have a portal-based connection service like ConnectWise, but it does backups and keeps things running. Datto purchased Backupify and Kaseya bought Datto. If they upped the ante in their RMM, I could see them dominating the MSP space. At the end of the day, MSPs are responsible for networks, software, devices, and backup. Datto covers all these functions so they could offer a turnkey MSP solution.  

There are so many IT companies out there because there are so many ways to become a managed service provider. Datto does it all—RMM, security, network hardware, backup—so you could white-label it, come up with some weird logo on Canva, and open a LinkedIn account, then you're a managed service provider overnight.

Datto is scalable.

They have an emergency service for partners, so if things go bad, you call the number to connect with someone instantly. 

Deploying Datto isn't complex. You don't even need to know how it works—you just pay for it. 

I rate Datto 10 out of 10. It's the market leader. While I'm not a fan of the Datto networking hardware, it does what it's supposed to do. However, I tend to stick with Cisco for networking hardware and back things up using Datto. If I were to recommend an RMM tool, I would say ConnectWise is better. 

I used it in my previous company. I was heading up sales and doing research into new solutions for a team of four on-the-ground people. We leveraged ConnectWise as our network operation center, security operation center, and help desk. We wanted to stop people from experiencing ransomware. We wanted to protect them.

The recovery time objective and recovery point objective were most valuable. It was easy to use, and it was easy to recover a file. I was the head of sales and a product evaluator for an MSSP, so I never had to deal with recovery from ransomware. However, I was confident that if ransomware had occurred, I would only lose a maximum of 59 minutes of data. The files were encrypted.

Their support was exceptional. They were always very responsive, and the escalation process was extremely easy.

It is being improved daily, but of course, there is always room for improvement because cybersecurity changes all the time in terms of the attack factors from the different cybercriminals. At the time I was using it, I would've focused more on signatures of malicious software in the cloud. I love Datto, and I know they're on the right path, but I probably would've focused more on the operating system update management. When you go from the desk to the cloud or from the server room to the cloud, everything changes. Everything is different. You're not in control of your servers anymore. It is from the Active Directory management perspective and not from the perspective of zero-day attacks or other similar things. At the time, more focus on zero-day attacks and business email compromise (BEC) would've been a better protection factor than just educating about how many of these attacks have occurred. Cybersecurity runs deep and long. There are a lot of different facets. There is a lot of hype about a specific zero-day attack or a specific vulnerability, such as whether it is a Microsoft operating system attack, or it is an Oracle attack, or it is a takeover of your update server. You hear all that stuff with the big breaches. At the smaller level, it's basically ignorance. So, you need a better understanding of what steps an MSP or MSSP can take to protect their clients as compared to just giving them a warning.

I don't want any additional features, but I want to keep the same security-minded management and product development team in place. Datto has now become a public company. Things change when you're a public company. There are multi-levels of management, but the company was never managed that way. It was managed as a private company—a very successful private company. So, the intricacies of being public should never get in the way of the original vision of the company to be an MSP-only company providing MSPs-only solutions. I believe that there is a community of about 300,000 people who do business with Datto, and they would agree with me.

I have been using this solution for about eight years. 

On a scale of one to five, I would rate them a five out of five. They were always very responsive, and the escalation process was extremely easy. If you're dealing with a vendor who has a responsibility to care for your customer's data, understanding the escalation process is imperative. For example, if I'm dealing with IBM for protecting my clients, it is a bit of a tangled web to get to a proper escalation process. Every second is another conceivable $1,000 for a company in stress or peril, whatever you want to call it. There could be some catastrophic failure of a backup. A lot of times it is simple stuff where somebody upgraded an operating system without permission from the security operations center. So, the ability to escalate and have people who understand what's going on to resolve that issue is imperative. I was working with an MSSP that did $190,000 a month. So, choosing a partner is imperative to understand not only what that partner's solution is, but also the following:

• Where is the value when something goes wrong? 
• Where is the response?
• How does the escalation process work? 
• What do I do if there is a problem with the service you're providing me? 

Being a partner-only company and selling to a partner-only company, Austin and the other original members of Datto clearly understood that the escalation process needs to happen rapidly and effectively. I would also lend that to their account management side. It was easy for me to escalate up three levels if I ever needed to. I didn't really need to, but it was easy. I had access to say that I've got a problem here, and it is not being fixed. My client is in pain, and I need it fixed now. When that message got delivered, it was addressed immediately.

In 1995 or 1996, there were a lot of solutions that were focused on cybersecurity, but they only had the ability to notify you if something went wrong or they suspected that something went wrong. If you were a decent-sized company, you had to put your security operations team on it to understand what went wrong. In 2005 or 2006, when I started at my previous company, I was responsible for business development and growing their business. I was also responsible for evaluating or recommending new products to bring on board and turn them from a managed IT services provider to a managed IT services and cybersecurity services provider, which I did successfully, but there were so many companies that were in the legacy that just notified you of a problem. Datto not only notified you of a problem, but they also worked to resolve it without your intervention. So, that's what I brought on board. 

As the company grew from business continuity—or what used to be called business BCDR—they brought on services. Certain services, such as SaaS protection, were a value-add, but you would expect to pay for them. They are not going to be free. It is just the life that you live when you're evaluating software vendors, partners, etc. There is going to be some form of a base offering, and then there are going to be different tiers that you need to get up to a better level. 

Based on my 28 years of experience in this business, Datto was the very best at taking care of its partners. As you achieved different tiers, you were rewarded⁠—it could be a nice dinner for your team, or it could be a deeper discount on the charge per month for the backup. They were always very effective at enticing or enhancing and bringing on new offers to keep their partners growing.

Ransomware and attacks on the infrastructure seem to be what's on everybody's mind today, but the truth be told, business email compromises cost more money last year than ransomware. If you want to balance your approach to protecting a client, you need to understand the key points for protecting your client. Datto has partnered with a company, which I don't really like, for cybersecurity awareness training. That's very important because social engineering or business email compromise is going to be a huge issue. You need to know how to fight that. We all know the human firewall is the weakest point in our link. I could sell you $6 million worth of software and specialized hardware, but if you're not changing the thought process of your employees or the people who are working for you to recognize social engineering, which is basically business email compromise, you're not protecting the weakest link in the chain. The least educated are the employees. If you want to put together a cybersecurity stack that works, you need to incorporate all different facets, such as multi-factor authentication, password management, and timeouts or limits on failed password authentication. However, when you have all these restraints on your employees, it's somewhat uncomfortable. So, you got to force that down to the sea level and say that this is how I'm going to help you. Without proper education about malware, business email compromise can't be avoided. For example, about two years ago, a client transferred $275,000 to an account through the electronic funds transfer. If they had recognized the faults in the email, they never would've done anything. They would've said that this is a lie, and an attempt to steal. The ability to recognize what's conceivably wrong with that text or that email is imperative. It is an imperative piece of the whole cybersecurity stack.

I would rate this solution a 10 out of 10. They are laser-focused on bringing forth proven protection technologies and stopping cybercriminals from being able to breach, break, steal, or compromise your data.

The solution is primarily used for disaster recovery scenarios.

The solution helps with recovery of data when we have a failover situation. Fortunately, our system is pretty robust and for the most part, I'm just involved with testing the systems. However, it has helped with regards to the simplicity, and the high level of confidence we have in our failover in the data that gets failed over.

The data recovery of the solution is very good.

The system is very simple in general. It's not overly complex.

We have a very high level of confidence that if we have a failover situation, this solution will be able to handle recovery.

The solution has the capability to scale well.

We've found the solution to be pretty stable.

The pricing isn't too expensive. It's in line with what's available on the market these days.

I don't have any feedback to provide in terms of features that may be lacking. Overall, it's been pretty good.

They should just keep heading in the direction they are heading and continue to improve the product without falling behind on advancements in the space.

I've been using the solution for about five years at this point.

The solution has been very stable so far. It's a robust product. We don't have any issues with crashes. It doesn't freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches. We seem to be able to rely on it.

From my understanding, it's very scalable. We don't have any concerns there. If we need to expand it, I'm sure we can.

We've got over 14,000 users on our system every day. So, that's how many users would be using the system in general. From an admin perspective, we're talking about a couple of dozen.

I was not involved in the initial setup. I'm assuming it was pretty straightforward. I didn't hear anything that would indicate otherwise.

I don't directly deal with billing or licensing. My understanding is it's comparable to what is on the market, however, I couldn't say what the exact numbers are.

We haven't really evaluated other options, we wouldn't be able to fairly compare this solution to anything else.

We're just customers. We don't have a business relationship with Datto. We're only end-users of their product.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using.

While I don't have advice specific t the product, I'd advise other users that, whatever product they go with, they have to make sure that they're evaluating it according to their system. Everyone's environment is different and so everyone's needs are different. What may be right for us may not be right for others.

In general, I would rate this solution at an eight out of ten. It's been a pretty positive experience overall.

Backup.  For local backup, it works well. Thank you StorageCraft.  For the Cloud - we have given up that strategy.  We don't even consider the local virtualized recovery, because the performance is ridiculous.

Easy to manage and work with.  I would say it did not improve our organization, and in fact has created a challenging, tedious, high maintenance solution if you factor in DR testing, and local recovery performance is abysmal.  Clients are not happy.

Enables you to spin-up VMs with screen shots, sent by email (when it works).  This helps us validate a good backup.  Nothing else positive to add.

• No Hyper-V integration
• VirtualBox performance is terrible, although KVM is now rolling out
• Large agent to install on each VM (due to lack of Hyper-V support)


• Unreliable agents - known to cause VMs to reboot, especially older Windows 2008 systems
• Lack of VLAN support

• Cloud recovery is missing flexibility and the ability to create virtual firewalls or VPNs based on IPsec.  Only OpenVPN is supported at this time.
• Their cloud recovery option is tedious, a manual process that has to be planned up to 2 weeks for a validation process.
• You really need to test it thoroughly to understand its limitations and issues.
• Datto chose to build their own cloud, instead of leveraging AWS, Azure or GCP.  It looks, feels and behaves like a beta product (lacks maturity).
• As expected, customer service, products are in disarray after the reverse acquisition of AutoTask.  I recommend that you stay away from Datto.

We have issues with stability.

We have issues with scalability.

Customer Service:

I would give customer service a rating of 9/10. They provided decent customer service.

Technical Support:

I would give technical support a rating of 9/10. They are helpful and knowledgeable with their product.

We evaluated Intronis/Barracuda. We did the switch due to:

• Poor technical support
• Missing features
• Unreliable backups
• Unreliable recoveries
• Very slow download of complete images for recovery

The initial setup was easy.

We used an in-house team, who have an excellent knowledge of the product.

We had an ROI after two years.

They have an expensive, monthly cloud backup.

We evaluated Unitrends for a similar appliance approach. Cloudberry.  StorageGuardian and R1Soft by Continuum.  We are still looking for the best MSP friendly solution, that is more cost effective than Veeam.

Avoid it until it matures. I would wait until they support:

• Hyper-V: If that is important to you
• VLANs: To capture backups outside of a single LAN

• Cloud Recovery: Virtual firewall, VPN appliance. Better security and controls.

Datto is now merged with AutoTask.  This may have an impact on roll-out of new features, capabilities, as their focus will be integration with their in-house RMM.

Hyper-V Integration: Datto has VMware ESXi integration – direct hypervisor level backup of each virtual machine works well. Unfortunately, it cannot do the same with Microsoft’s Hyper-V.  Keep in mind that Datto is geared towards the SMB market, where Hyper-V is quite popular. Each Hyper-V VM must install the rather heavy agent (StorageCraft + VirtualBox component).

Lack of VLAN: Datto does not have the ability to create virtual interfaces, or VLAN tagging. This becomes an issue if you have a VM located in another network or DMZ – the backup will have to be routed to the datto appliance. This is often the case with Hyper-V guests, as the issue is exacerbated by the inability to backup natively at the hypervisor.

VirtualBox: Simulated disaster tests clearly show that the datto appliance cannot really replace a busy server. This becomes painfully obvious with SQL servers, SharePoint, and Exchange. Datto uses a low-end ZOTAC “PC” grade appliance, and often times with SATA drives and insufficient RAM when compared to a server. How can it truly measure up to a real server with 128GB of RAM, RAID-5 or 10 with 8+ HDD? The answer: it does not. Datto is now rolling out KVM support, so expect better performance.

Cloud Recovery: This has to be done with assistance from Datto support, in both real and simulated conditions. To simulate a disaster and cloud recovery, you need to schedule ahead of time (10 business days, last I checked) to obtain an engineer. Now, the recovery point will also be about two weeks old at this point, which for testing purposes is not a major issue. Unfortunately, the interface that Datto provides is quite primitive. You have the ability to console into the VM, and some port forwarding (For RDP, HTTP), but that’s it. Networking needs to be defined ahead of time (such as DMZ VMs, or VLANs). You will also need to reconfigure all the networking under Windows and Linux. There is no Firewall or VPN virtual appliance provided. In a real-world, complete disaster scenario, a client would have limited access to their “cloud servers” – unless you have a remote desktop server in your topology. Not only is your recovered infrastructure at greater risk/exposure to the Internet from the lack of a specialized Firewall, you also have to deal with limited connectivity. Anyone who takes the cloud recovery as a serious option, needs to plan and anticipate that need. You will need an OpenVPN client, or similar to connect securely to your "cloud" recovery area.

I really wanted to like Datto. Their marketing is slick, no doubt about it. I expect that certain limitations are due to the fact that Datto does not own the backup technology used – it is based on StorageCraft.  All Datto does is a web interface wrapper, built on Zotac generic brand appliances.  They leverage opensource in almost every other aspect, but unfortunately they have weak implementations.

• Very friendly, since it visually facilitates the control and administration of the backups.
• Very easy to do backup virtualizations.
• Very easy to use both their control boards and the backups themselves (virtualized).
• The platform of attention and support to the user is very fast (with datto).

Increased DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) process stability and mitigated business continuity risks.

To better integrate compatibility with other operating systems, in addition to Windows Server.

I've used this solution for three and a half years.

None, the product and its platform are very stable. All OK.

None, scalability has been OK.

Very good, timely, and effective.

We had used others without purpose to put it in the scheme of a DRP, like ArcServer, but only to do conventional backups and not to function as your alternate platform.

The initial configuration was simple (adding agents of new servers that were created in a very easy and intuitive way), the most difficult is to define your schematic of how long incremental backups should be made, from which servers or applications, etc.

Price and License: Best (the most competitive).

Yes, several.

That prior to the acquisition and evaluation of solutions like datto, make a plan that works for times of recovery and at points of return, in case they need to enable the platform as an alternative (secondary application) to your primary applications.

By evaluating and choosing, we can question the supplier and challenge their technology, qualifying quantitatively who best meets the needs according to the criterion cost/benefit.

One of the best features is the simple to use web interface of the system. Within minutes anyone with a technical background is able to navigate the system and understand how to setup and run backups as well as the ability to recover files and systems. When you compare it to other systems that require a fat client to be installed or to have several VMs setup just to configure the system, Datto stands head and shoulders above.

Because Datto has 24/7 US based technical support, we have been able to keep our staff headcount down to a minimum with the understanding that Datto is standing behind us and is ready to help if we get in over our heads. Also, the centralized partner portal allows us a birds eye view of our entire fleet from one website.

Datto started as a backup solution for the SMB market and they are in the process of adding more Enterprise features in order to gain more market share in that space as well. Some of the Enterprise features are online now (agentless backup with VMWare) but they still have a few to tackle (clustered SQL instances).

I have personally been using the solution for the past 7 years continuously.

Deployments couldn't be easier. You plug in the appliance and go.

Generally the system is rock solid. There are many moving parts however and at any given time I have about 2% of the protected servers needing some attention. With over 400 servers that we use with this system that 2% is less than FTE to deal with.

Scalability goes back to my comment about being ready for Enterprise clients. Right now the appliances have a functional limit of 50 protected servers each. For most clients that would be fine but as we talk to some that have 1000+ servers it gets to be a bit crazy. Again, Datto is in the process of adding more options to deal with these scenarios, but just don't have them yet.

Excellent. Our rep feels like part of the family.

Also, excellent. I haven't been able to stump them with an issue yet and they are available any time of the day or night.

We used Acronis and backed up to USB drives. The Datto solution is much more full featured and we love the fact that it is a turn-key solution that handles all of our needs for DR.

Very easy.

We implemented the system ourselves (I've personally been a part of 70+ implementations) and have had no major issues each time.

For MSPs this will vary significantly based on how they bundle their services. The good news is that you pay Datto a flat rate per month for the service so it is easy to understand your cost structure.

The flat rate billing from Datto makes everything very simple and you don't have to worry about overages and additional fees associated with the system.

We are constantly looking just to make sure we are doing the right thing but haven't found anything that could hold a candle to Datto. Recently we have looked at Unitrends and StorageCraft but in my opinion neither comes close.