Who handles backup, disaster recovery and ransomware response?
Backup, Disaster Recovery and Ransomware: What The Shortlist Report Finds
3 firms lead, appearing in 8.9–14.0% of 235 AI responses. The sample cannot separate them, so we do not pretend it can.
Three firms lead
Sourcepass, ClearPath and IBM come up most often here. They are close enough together that the order between them is not worth reading anything into.
Sourcepass33 of 235
Provides managed IT services to mid-market and enterprise organizations with 500+ employees, offering 24/7 support and vCIO account management.
ClearPath29 of 235
IBM21 of 235
Manages enterprise infrastructure, hybrid cloud operations, security, and IT modernization for large organizations with complex environments.
Based on 235 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 11, 2026–October 1, 2026. Firms are counted once per response. How we measure.
The ranking
| Firm | Responses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 3 firms, 8.9–14.0% | |||
| Sourcepasssourcepass.comProvides managed IT services to mid-market and enterprise organizations with 500+ employees, offering 24/7 support and vCIO account management. | 33 of 235 | 14.0% | |
| ClearPath | 29 of 235 | 12.3% | |
| IBMManages enterprise infrastructure, hybrid cloud operations, security, and IT modernization for large organizations with complex environments. | 21 of 235 | 8.9% | |
| Tier 2 7 firms, 4.7–8.5% | |||
| VortexProvides business continuity planning design, implementation, and management including Business Impact Analysis. | 20 of 235 | 8.5% | |
| SAVIC TechnologiesProvides disaster recovery testing services including failover, RTO measurement, and recovery procedures for enterprise environments. | 14 of 235 | 6.0% | |
| TierPointtierpoint.comProvides co-managed and fully managed cloud infrastructure, disaster recovery, and security services for organizations. | 14 of 235 | 6.0% | |
| Agility Recoveryagilityrecovery.comOffers business continuity exercises including tabletop drills, live simulations, and recovery testing with documentation and certification. | 13 of 235 | 5.5% | |
| Ntivantiva.comDelivers managed IT, cybersecurity, cloud, and compliance support to small and midmarket businesses. | 11 of 235 | 4.7% | |
| PCS Managed ServicesProvides business continuity planning with risk assessment, recovery roadmaps, compliance mapping, and incident response services. | 11 of 235 | 4.7% | |
| Thrivethrivenextgen.comDelivers managed IT, cloud, and cybersecurity services to mid-market and enterprise organizations. | 11 of 235 | 4.7% | |
Key findings
- Sourcepass, ClearPath and IBM lead this sample, each named in 8.9–14.0% of 235 ChatGPT responses to the question “Who handles backup, disaster recovery and ransomware response?”, collected August 11, 2026–October 1, 2026.
- The gaps between Sourcepass, ClearPath and IBM are inside the margin of error at 235 responses, so The Shortlist Report groups them in one tier rather than ranking them against each other.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “Who handles backup, disaster recovery and ransomware response?” in ChatGPT as of October 1, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- Ntiva appears in 5 of the 16 managed IT service providers reports published by The Shortlist Report, the widest coverage of any firm named on this page.
- No firm paid to appear in this ranking; placement cannot be bought, and the counts come from ChatGPT responses rather than from submissions.
Why the tiers fall where they do
Tier 1 holds Sourcepass, ClearPath and IBM, named in 21 to 33 of the 235 ChatGPT responses. They are grouped rather than ranked because the gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size — one extra mention would reorder them, so an order would be reporting noise as a finding.
Tier 2 holds Vortex, SAVIC Technologies, TierPoint, Agility Recovery, Ntiva, PCS Managed Services and Thrive, named in 11 to 20 of 235 responses (4.7–8.5%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
The test is McNemar’s at 95%, applied against the same 235 responses for every firm. The full reasoning, and what happened when we ranked one-to-N instead.
What the sample shows
3 firms lead this question: Sourcepass, ClearPath and IBM. They appear in 8.9–14.0% of the 235 responses. The gaps between them are inside the margin of error at this sample size, so they are listed together rather than ranked against each other.
332 firms were named at least once across the sample. 10 of them cleared the threshold of 2 responses and appear above; the rest were named once and are inside the noise.
How to read this
Firms are grouped into tiers, not ranked one to fifteen. A tier holds every firm whose 95% confidence interval overlaps the leader's, which is a long way of saying the sample cannot tell them apart. Order within a tier is arbitrary — read the counts, not the position.
Share is the percentage of responses that named the firm — not a quality score. A firm scoring low here may be excellent and simply under-written about online, which is a finding about its visibility rather than its work.
The same question was asked repeatedly because AI assistants do not answer identically twice. A single response would tell you almost nothing.
What this measurement does not tell you
- It is not a quality ranking. Share reflects how much has been written about a firm online, which is what an AI assistant reads. A capable firm nobody writes about scores low here.
- It is a reading from a date range, not a permanent standing. This sample was collected August 11, 2026–October 1, 2026; models change and so do their answers.
- It covers ChatGPT only. Other assistants answer differently, and we do not extrapolate across engines we have not measured.
- Order within a tier is arbitrary. Read the counts, not the position. Why we use tiers.
Cite this report
The Shortlist Report. (2026). Backup, Disaster Recovery and Ransomware: What The Shortlist Report Finds. The Shortlist Report. https://www.shortlistreport.com/article/msp-backup-and-ransomware-recovery
Underlying counts: CSV · JSON. Every answer they were counted from: plain text · JSON. All reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.