Assured Data Protection (Assured) announced the launch of its Innovation Team-a strategic initiative aimed at expanding the company's market-leading disaster recovery (DR), backup, and cyber resiliency services with the addition of new technologies that complement current data protection services. 

Led by Tony Giannini, a seasoned executive from the IT service sector who recently joined Assured, the Innovation Team will focus on identifying and implementing technologies that bring new value to customers beyond Assured's current Rubrik-based offering. Tony will be supported by UK-based cyber resiliency leaders Chris Deacon and Nik Grove, alongside other team members.

The team's first innovation initiative, which is already underway, has seen Assured partner with hybrid-cloud computing company Nutanix to deliver a first-of-its-kind backup and DR solution to customers. Nutanix Disaster Recovery as-a-Service, delivered by Assured, requires no investment in facilities or hardware and operationalizes Nutanix disaster recovery solutions, providing protection to customers in over 70 countries worldwide. By combining Nutanix replication with traditional data protection offerings, customers can prioritize their workloads, matching recovery speed to the most critical applications while leveraging lower-cost solutions for those workloads that can support longer recovery time and point capabilities. It can be operational within hours, providing Nutanix customers with the confidence of a robust backup and DR solution, delivered by an award-winning global data backup and disaster recovery managed service provider.

The product is already proving to be highly successful for Assured, Nutanix, and their customers. As a result, Assured has been named Nutanix MSP of the Year for 2024 in the UK. The two companies will now explore ways to deepen and expand the partnership, led by Assured's Innovation Team.

Stacy Hayes, EVP of Americas, Assured Data Protection, commented: "The formation of our Innovation Team is an important strategic initiative for Assured. We've built a strong business taking Rubrik's market-leading disaster recovery and immutable backup technology to market through our MSP model. As we grow and expand globally, now is the time to build on our success by adding additional technologies that will complement our data protection services, bringing new value to our customers. We're thrilled to have Tony Giannini onboard to lead this initiative, supported by Chris Deacon and Nik Grove. The Innovation Team will greatly contribute to our rapid growth."

Tony Giannini, Global Innovations Team Leader, Assured Data Protection, commented: "This is a great time to be joining Assured and a fantastic opportunity to work with the most talented people in the data protection space. I'm looking forward to working with the Innovation Team to develop adjacent technologies that complement Assured's as-a-service offer in a stand-alone product development business unit within the company." 

Chris Deacon, Co-Lead, Innovation Team, Assured Data Protection, commented: "There's a great need and demand for innovation in the backup and disaster recovery sector, especially around managed services. Nik and I have worked together as a team for over 10 years, having built and run successful technology businesses in this sector. We understand the market and customer pain points, and we're delighted to work with Tony Giannini to provide customers with more technology options to solve their specific challenges, while helping Assured diversify its technology portfolio."

Innovation Key to Assured's Global Expansion

Fulfilling a long-standing strategic vision of Assured Data Protection's founders-and backed by a 2024 capital investment from Oakley Capital-the company is accelerating its global expansion. While the United States and the United Kingdom remain Assured's largest and most established markets, the company continues to scale its presence across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa. This growth reflects rising global demand for consumption-based IT services and Assured's managed offerings, which deliver added value by allowing organizations to offload the critical, but non-mission supportive, function of data protection and cyber resiliency/disaster recovery as a service.