Issue No. 122October 2022

DattoCon 2022

This month, we thought we’d take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a special bulletin concerning our recent convention attendance! In September, our CTO, CEO, and Senior Solution Design Engineer (Robert, Danny, and Chris, respectively) attended DattoCon 2022 in Washington DC. In the article below we’ll detail some specific takeaways from the conference, as well as provide a bit of a backstory on who Datto is, and what they do.

Datto started out as a purely Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery company. Effectively, they provide technology that manages, stores, and maintains backups. Thinking of a Datto as simply a backup device is a bit reductive, which is why you’ll often see the abbreviation BCDR. In this instance, Business Continuity means being able to maintain business operations in the event of a disaster of some kind. This could take the form of a catastrophic hardware failure that prevents a server from operating properly, or a natural disaster that made an entire office uninhabitable. By leveraging virtualization capabilities, Datto is able to not only take a backup of a server, it can then run a virtual instance of that server when needed to maintain continuity of business operations until the device itself can be restored to normal functionality.

Branching out from there, Datto moved into numerous other spaces. Beginning by deploying wireless and networking gear, Datto then merged with a company called Autotask, which brought them their own ticketing system—which we use internally. Their growth and development only accelerated from there, leading to an acquisition by one of the largest companies in the Managed IT Services space, Kaseya. Along the way, Datto started their own yearly conference, called DattoCon, where they announced new products and services, as well as provided MSPs with continuing education in the BCDR, Security, and general IT business operations spaces.

DattoCon has since become a big yearly event not only for Datto itself, but for their partners, like KTS. Following a transition to an entirely remote model during the height of the pandemic, this year we were excited to return to an in-person event. Danny, Robert, and Chris attended numerous breakout sessions touching on a wide range of topics—we hope to bring those key takeaways to our clients in the months ahead. Below we’ve outlined just a few highlights—if you’re curious about any other takeaways from the event we’d love to fill you in!

Key Takeaways from DattoCon 2022

• Cyber Crimes have increased 300% since the beginning of the pandemic.
• 60% of SMBs that experience a cyber attack go out of business.
• Top 3 things you can do to mitigate security issues: Patch systems, utilize a password manager, and avoid phishing scams (good email filter and end user training).
• Have an incident response plan.
• Know what systems are attached to your network and remove old equipment.

Please enjoy the picture below of Chris, Robert and Danny at DattoCon 2022!