Commercial support and future of UrBackup?

#1

Hello,

I am MSP, I work only for bussiness and proffessional services. I have proffessional, enterprise grade backup solutions to offer to some of my clients as First Backup Resource and for Server-Critical Disaster Recovery with enterprise support behind. All of these solutions are implemented as payment services by big software enterprises like Solarwinds or Acronis and others. This is how I think it must be if you want to have any robust and reliable backup system. You need some proffesional support behind these pieces of software. This is what I think.

But, I have a big challenge, and it consist in what I define it as a “Second Backup Resource”, to have backups of a lot of “less-critical” computers, like user desktops and small servers with non-critical functions. I have been looking a lot arround, a long time, for a robust backup solution to use in this cases and finally I found UrBackup as a perfect solution that unifies quality, enterprise grade like use, reliable and robust software to do this mission.

But, after a few weeks using it, I found a big lack, and it is the practically fault of support. I know that there is the forum and people can help ones to others in the most basic problems, but, I think this is insuficient.
I would like to know if it is any consideration to have a commercial support or anything similar in the future of this project. I don´t want to “force” anybody to have to do anything, I just want to know what to expect to plan my future actions with this great piece of software.

I think there are more people interested in this issue, and I would like to have any answer if it is possible.

This isn´t in anyway any criticism.
Many many thanks for the incredible work.

Cheers

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#2

I think it isn’t so hard to give an answer…

Thank you anyway.

#3

This is just the nature of an opensource and free project. Paid support would be a nice thing, but is likely not feasible for the devs at this point. That’s just a guess on my part though.

#4

The big problem is scope. You seem to be using it with a Windows server and a Linux iSCSI NAS? I’d say this is a rare combination. Then the problem is a performance problem. So the solution would probably be telling you to use storage with more IOPS (which has not much to do with UrBackup).

From a user perspective it would also be better to pay(/donate) for a easy to use solution that tells you how to fix problems, rather then pay support for a difficult to use solution with cryptic error messages. A support model would encourage the latter btw.

#5

First of all, thanks for answer.

Related to my configuration and the problem I posted in the other thread, I can tell you that, as far as I can see, the vast majority of branded NAS (QNAP, Synology, Netgear, etc) in the market are Linux based. So if I primary work with Windows Servers, I have no much chance to use other systems to use as backup storage and to stay into “red line” (in terms of economy) for the small bussiness range in for which is this planned. In fact, this is a very usual configuration in small bussiness with Windows based.
Nevertheless, I agree that in this case, probably, the problem is the bottleneck that causes the conjunction of an “old” hardware in server side with a small NAS. Which does not mean that, maybe there are any optimizations that I can do in settings of UrBackup to improve it?

Related to the support question, I think that the software it´s great and I like it. And effectively, the scope and the possibilities of running it in a lot of systems and configurations does not help to provide a solution for every tiny problem that can happen.
Well I don´t know which would be a good support model for you, but for me, a good support could be (for example) that if you purchase the CBT, maybe increasing the price a bit, it include priority support for the version that the license is valid. Priority support means for me that I receive an answer for a question in a reasonable time like any other thousands of software enterprises do.
Or maybe other idea is to have support plans (Basic, Medium and Advanced) independent of the licenses, and pay for it in function the number of support cases.

What I can see, this is not a criticism, is that a lot of questions in the forums remain unanswered, and if there isn´t any other way to ask a question, in some cases, it´s a little frustrating. :slight_smile:

In any case, I will stay attent, and I will continue to use this great software, unless I have a lot of problems.

Thank you so much.

#6

Maybe a solution is to do pay by the hour of “general” consulting fees at 500€/8h.

Another idea. I guess some peoples would pay for some answer sla or solution sla.
They have a problem, they post something on the forums, they would pay for an answer in the next 12 hours or so. And a solution in the next 72h. (only including working hours defined as whatever)
Maybe pay 500€/server+5€/client /year. Then if the issue isn’t a urbackup bug, pay 500€/8h consulting fees for the time you spent investigating.

Btw, i didn’t managed to get my boss to pay anything for backups, so this is mostly a suggestion in the interest of other peoples.

#7

Here’s the deal with donations. A lot of U.S companies won’t give you a dime (ten cents, U.S) if they don’t have to. But if there is an option for direct support, and it’s needed, they will pay. I’d rather pay to support a great product like this, as opposed to returning to the trash product that is BackupExec.

But quite frankly, if there is no way to get relatively quick help to problems, many will look elsewhere.

#8

I would agree with @WILLIAM_BLAIR the big thing with providing a service to make sure that you have support when you need it. Also I wouldn’t think that donations would rule out a support model. It would supplement it.

For example:

  • Backup 10 devices with support and CBT = $500/year
  • Backup 50 devices with support and CBT = $2400/year
  • Setup a “user voice” website with Feature Requests. The devs interact with this and set a donation target. Donations given. Time frame given. Beta testers allowed. etc, etc.

Just my 2 bobs worth :slight_smile:
Thanks for your work guys.

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