vtsilverback

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  1. We are a small managed services provider. We have been in business for 10 years catering to a group of small businesses and professional individual clients. We use a Remote Monitoring and Management package to provide basic remote management of client PCs and, to a limited degree, some Macs. We oversee patching, daily backups, common application updating and other routine maintenance and related support services. On every subscribed machine we maintain two methods of unattended remote access plus a maintenance login “Manager” just for us to be able to remote in for (mostly off-hours) service work without needing to use the primary user login. “Manager” has Administrator access so we run scripts and other utilities under those credentials where appropriate. We also offer to two of our small businesses and a few of our professional individuals an FSS (file sync and sharing) package for replicating personal files to several devices plus collaborating with other team members on shared documents. Our FSS solution for the small businesses is based on each having a small Synology NAS that uses Synology’s built-in Cloud Station Drive ability to share files on a group or individual permissions basis. This keeps their data out of the public cloud plus their NAS also syncs with our master server (a larger Synology NAS) for disaster recovery protection. We also use the master server as the sync point for the professional individuals who do not have their own NAS. Finally, we sync our entire master server with another Synology NAS geographically separated for extra backup and avoidance of single point of failure. The entire model has been tested over the past year and we are ready to make a marketing push to expand this line of business with this solution. We discovered a choke point with the Synology NAS units: they have a threshold that can handle only a limited number of overall sync points and with the hub and spoke model of syncing using Cloud Station, our customer and our own NAS units are already nearing overburdening. A while back we recognized this and started searching for a P2P model for syncing that would replace use of Synology Cloud Station and allow unlimited sync points but also treat the client and our master and backup servers as P2P sync points. We tested with Resilio Sync installed on one of our NAS devices and to the extent we tested the whole NAS capacity problem can be greatly remediated using Resilio Sync in place of Cloud Station. I installed a single Pro Home version to do some testing and recently upgraded it to a Pro Family pack. I think it is fine for my use and that of my close family for whom I provide technology support. We also signed up for a Reseller license so that we could begin deploying Sync Business commercially and testing an overall optimal deployment strategy that would solve the Synology NAS bottlenecks for existing clients plus become a basis for reselling and supporting Business Sync licenses as a revenue stream for us. Resilio Sync is powerful and has many options. We have been working to sort these out and settle our approach down into a simple installation script for each endpoint. But there are many options and optional modes of deployment and we want to roll this out using the best architecture. Here is a brief outline of our plan and needs for further (paid) support: We will use our first Business Sync license for the account “Manager” that is already installed on all managed PCs. We want to deploy it as service and it will sync only a small maintenance folder on each machine, containing support documents and utilities for our use under the “Manager” login on each machine. We want to deploy this as simply as possible and be able to terminate it from a central point should a machine drop from our service platform (i.e. deploy as an Advanced folder, we are guessing, but have not been successful yet to test deploying and then unlinking). For my personal machines, I will be using my personal Sync Family license plus I will share the “Manager” maintenance folder to the “Manager” login on my devices. I have already tested the personal deployment to PCs and cell phones. Works very nicely. And I have shared the “Manager” folder so that concept seems to work fine also. After setting up syncing the “Manager” folder on all our client machines for our maintenance purposes, we then want to market to our clients why they should purchase individual Business Licenses in addition, to share their folders among their machines and use them for collaboration in place of Cloud Station for their NAS devices. To that end, we will be looking to test the process of converting an existing machine, with just our “Manager” license, to a client-owned Business license while retaining sharing of the “Manager” folder on that machine. We have machines designated to stand in as a test client. We will initially deploy the “Manager” license and maintenance folder to these machines, then convert them using one of the Business Sync licenses as we would expect to convert our existing clients once we start the upsell process. That is the overview of what we want to do, and we think it will be a basis to sell Business Sync licenses broadly. Once we have it deployed to our existing base and have optimized the installation processes, we plan to start a marketing push for new businesses in this area. We see an opportunity to package this model and expand our reach also with acquiring other managed services providers and their client base. But we need personalized Sync expertise to deploy this optimally, and we are willing to pay for that knowledge. We have already used a few tickets with Sync Support to explore some of our questions/options and they have been most helpful to the extent they can with their support model. Very nice and helpful folks, but they do not offer a paid Sync consulting service and we do not want to overburden their support with our specific deployment issues and questions. If you have the experience, fully understand the variations and subtleties of how Sync licenses and folders can be deployed, and especially if you have any experience with Sync on a Synology server, including the use of Encrypted folders, please respond in the forum and provide off-forum contact information. We would like to pay for your time and expertise and are anxious to get this work concluded, tested and ready for deployment. Thanks!