Virtual Office - Use & billing - x360Recover (VO)

Written By Tami Sutcliffe (Super Administrator)

Updated at May 1st, 2023

What is x360Recover Virtual Office? (vo)

x360Recover Virtual Office is your self-service portal for recovery and virtualization of end points (protected systems) in the Cloud, whenever your on-premises backup is unavailable. 

Details on using Virtual Office are here:


Virtual Office billing

Who is entitled to Virtual Office use? 

All x360Recover partners are entitled to use Virtual Office as described here (including both traditional BDR appliance users and Direct-to-Cloud customers.)


How much use is included with Virtual Office?

All x360Recover partners are entitled to thirty (30) days of Virtual Office use per endpoint (protected system) per calendar year.


What counts as use?

  • Use is tracked per endpoint (protected system) whenever a system is both rendered and running within a virtual office. 
  • Merely creating or starting a virtual office for a client does not generate usage. 
  • Use is tracked based on actual running virtual machines within the virtual office.
  • No distinction is made between test mode and live mode when calculating use.  

How is use calculated?

Use is calculated per day. 

Any day in which an endpoint (protected system) is running within a virtual office for any length of time (1 minute, 1 hour, or all day) will be counted as use.

All x360Recover partners are entitled to thirty (30) days of Virtual Office use per endpoint (protected system) per calendar year.

Use is recorded in one-quarter day ( 6 hour) increments, such as:

Virtual machine run time used: Use calculation:
1 minute up to 6 hours of virtual machine run time 0.25 days of use
6 hours up to 12 hours of virtual machine run time 0.5 days of use
12 hours up to 18 hours of virtual machine run time
0.75 days of use
18 hours up to 24 hours of virtual machine run time
1 day of use

How is overage use calculated?

  • Total use is tracked per end point (protected system) per calendar year. 
  • A year is considered to be January 1st thru December 31st.
  • Overage charges apply when total use for any endpoint exceeds thirty days per calendar year

Remember: Use is tracked per endpoint.

If some end points run longer or more frequently than others, they will begin to incur overage charges sooner than end points that are run less frequently.

  • No distinction is made between test mode and live mode when calculating use.  

How are overage charges calculated?

Overage charges are calculated at a standard rate: (a) per day and (b) per end point.  

(Please contact your representative with questions about your specific rate.)

Example scenario:

  • Partner A's client needs five end points to be virtualized in the Axcient cloud for a live recovery. 
  • The client then needs to run the five virtual machines in the Cloud while their on-prem facilities are repaired.
  • The client's five virtual machines are left running continuously in the Axcient cloud for 35 days before their on-prem environment can be restored.

Charges:

Presuming there is no previous use in this calendar year for these end points, the first 30 days of use are included as part of Partner A’s Virtual Office entitlement.   

The remaining five days are billed as Virtual Office overage charges at Partner A's standard rate:

Five (5) days x five (5) virtual machines x Partner A's standard rate

VERY IMPORTANT:  No billing distinction is made between test mode and live mode for purposes of calculating Virtual Office use.  Use is use.


Use Virtual Office efficiently

New partners (and/or partners performing trials) 

  • For newly-onboarded partners (and partners performing trials of x360Recover), please take note that Virtual Office use incurred during your trial period is tracked against your annual entitlement.
  • Use incurred during your trial IS NOT reset at the end of your trial period

As a best practice, do not use production client environments for testing and training purposes during your trial period (unless you are specifically doing this at your client’s request.)

Using live client machines for trials, testing and training

We strongly recommend that you do not use live client machines to perform virtual office trials, technician training, onboarding, or other familiarization tests of virtual offices. 

The best practice for trials, testing and training is to use your own internal protected systems or other test systems, rather than live client machines.

Remember that use is use. Burning up your client’s virtual office entitled use for internal testing or training is not a good practice.

Monetize production tests

Virtual Office is definitely an opportunity to upsell your clients on enhanced recovery services by offering periodic cloud recovery testing.  

Whether you offer testing on an annual, quarterly, or even customized schedule, capitalize on your Virtual Office entitlements to demonstrate full-up cloud recovery scenarios - any time you wish to ‘prove’ the recoverability of your client environments.  

Best practice for monetizing production tests suggests that you take standard overage charges into account. Bill your client for testing at a rate that allows you to easily absorb any overages in the event a real recovery becomes necessary (as unexpected emergencies could lead to exceeding your entitlement for a client’s endpoints by a significant amount.)

Test Virtual Office - frugally

Once again, remember that use is use.   

  • When you are performing virtual office testing, be frugal with your usage.  
  • Start only the virtual machine you need to test.
  • Shut down virtual machines that are no longer needed. 
  • Do not leave virtual machines running over the weekend unless you are specifically testing something that requires it.  
  • Stop and discard your virtual offices when you are finished testing.  

Unnecessary virtual offices left active with running virtual machines will incur unwanted overage charges.



SUPPORT | 720-204-4500 | 800-352-0248 

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