Redstor Managing Director, Paul Evans, looks at how ‘The Cloud’ can help address today’s Public Sector Challenges
Established in 1998 Redstor’s has been an EMC partner since its inception and today its focus is data management and protection and cloud based services and solutions. The company’s commercial heritage spans the financial, technology, oil and gas markets. In 2005 Redstor turned its attention to the public sector in particular the education market.
The public sector is about to enter the greatest period of change since the end of the Second World War. Uncertainty is certain! The cupboards are bare. The age of austerity is among us. Whatever metaphor one chooses to use, the facts are daunting.
The UK is facing public sector debt north of £800 billion and this excludes the massive future pension liabilities. Budget cuts are expected to be at least 25% between 2010 and 2013. Becta is being shut down and merged with the ‘new’ Department for Education. The ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme has been stopped and the Autumn 2010 spending review is awaited with trepidation.
Add to this the immediate freeze in headcount, strict travel restrictions and imminent redundancies and it is clear that the next few years for the public sector will be tough.
Public Sector Repercussions:
Public sector technologies, and the teams that manage the technology infrastructure for the public sector, are predicted to be especially hard hit.
The situation public sector technology decision makers find themselves in is daunting. As cuts become increasingly widespread there are four central conclusions that can be drawn:
- Departments will delay hardware/software refreshes & upgrades
- Ageing IT kit will increase support overheads
- There will be greater stress on central IT teams
- Departments accustomed to existing levels of service will expect more for less
Going Green
As IT decision makers contemplate and plan for the next few years, the green agenda will continue to change the behaviours of these decision makers. The Carbon Reduction Efficiency Scheme (CRC) which started operating in April will put further pressure on technology decision makers. This is essential to reduce UK carbon emission gases by 80% before 2050 against a 1990 baseline and the public sector will have to comply.
Planning an ICT Strategy
Planning an effective ICT strategy has never been harder. The status quo is no longer an option and it is time to take a fresh approach towards ICT. The central issue technology decision makers must address is efficiency whilst maintaining and improving service to their internal and external customers.
Decision makers must specifically look at common infrastructures, standards and encourage the automation of mundane and repetitive tasks to focus attention on the customer experience. A single public sector network and the creation of the Government G-Cloud are seen as solutions that are gaining momentum within the public sector. The advantages of each are already well made arguments and address the central issue of efficiency within a cost effective framework based on pay-as-you-go, rather than upfront capital expenditure and benefiting from economies of scale.
Other issues gaining increased momentum include shared services, data centre rationalisation and common designs for desktop services.
As technology changes in the public sector take hold Redstor has been in the ,vanguard introducing cloud storage based technologies such as its online backup service which address key public sector challenges. For example its schools online backup service, which is underpinned by EMC SAN and VMware technology and sold through partners such as Local Authorities, addresses the fundamental issues faced by the public sector of cost and utilisation. By offering a cloud backup service to schools, Redstor through its economies of scale is able to offer a cheaper, greener service than the schools or Local Authority doing it themselves. They are able to get a predicatable price and do not need to incur upfront capital expenditure making the proposition compelling in these new lean times. Essentially Redstor’s Schools Backup Service is a Shared Service which also addresses the need for the public sector to standardise on common platforms as opposed to each Authority creating new bespoke backup and storage solutions and encourages data centre rationalisation thus saving space and power.
Whilst Redstor’s Cloud Backup Service cut its teeth in the public sector, Redstor also addresses the commercial space through partners (130 in total) and also works directly with corporate end users with its online backup plus offering.
Redstor became synonymous with RBUSS - Redstor Backup Service for Schools which is underpinned by EMC SAN technology. Today, over 85 Local Authorities and service providers use this service to backup data addressing 14,000 schools in England & Wales. Right now we are focusing on delivering Storage as a Service underpinned by EMC ATMOS technology and to learn more about this then please follow this blog!
Thursday 30 September 2010
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Mark Treweeke's Top Five Tips for Cloud Services and Networking
Mark Treweeke, Redstor's Product Manager gives us his top 5 tips for those looking for an insight into how to overcome network challenges that may be encountered when considering Online Cloud Backup and Cloud Storage Services.
1. The first backup or upload of data to the cloud is likely to take a long time, typically due to large data quantities needed to be shifted over low bandwidth connections. This can be alleviated by using an online backup or cloud storage provider who has a ‘seeding’ option where they ship you a storage device to collect the data before it is shipped back to the service provider and uploaded to the cloud platform.
2. Make sure that the technology that you are using to backup or move data into the cloud is designed for that purpose and has been designed to minimise data transfer over the network through data reduction technologies like compression, block or binary level incremental backups or client-side data de-duplication technology which eliminates blocks of data already stored in the cloud, all of which greatly reduces the amount of data that needs to be transported over the network. This type of enabling technology will allow only unique data to be sent after the initial seed backup has been performed.
3. The daily change rate should be something that's appropriate for online backups or cloud storage. If you're creating many tens or hundreds of gigabytes of unique data per day, and you need to back up that data or move it into the cloud every day, you may require greater bandwidth in order for the process to complete in a timely fashion. You’ll have to consider the cost of the additional network bandwidth required.
4. Security over public networks should be of concern, make sure that the enabling software encrypts the data before it is sent over the network and offers ‘end-to-end’ encryption.
5. Networks today are more reliable than ever but enabling technology should still include a strong re-connection mechanism. You don’t want your backup or data transfer to fail and have to re-start all over again because a connection to the internet or service provider was lost, even if it was momentarily. This is especially true for laptop backup, where they regularly lose their connection or move between networks or access points due to the portability of the device, power saving and hibernation options.
Redstor's cloud services include our ever-growing Online Backup service which currently protects upwards of 500TB of data and Redstor Protector, our Laptop Encryption and Backup service. If you require any further information around Cloud services and how these can help you adapt your business please call our office on 0118 9515 200.
1. The first backup or upload of data to the cloud is likely to take a long time, typically due to large data quantities needed to be shifted over low bandwidth connections. This can be alleviated by using an online backup or cloud storage provider who has a ‘seeding’ option where they ship you a storage device to collect the data before it is shipped back to the service provider and uploaded to the cloud platform.
2. Make sure that the technology that you are using to backup or move data into the cloud is designed for that purpose and has been designed to minimise data transfer over the network through data reduction technologies like compression, block or binary level incremental backups or client-side data de-duplication technology which eliminates blocks of data already stored in the cloud, all of which greatly reduces the amount of data that needs to be transported over the network. This type of enabling technology will allow only unique data to be sent after the initial seed backup has been performed.
3. The daily change rate should be something that's appropriate for online backups or cloud storage. If you're creating many tens or hundreds of gigabytes of unique data per day, and you need to back up that data or move it into the cloud every day, you may require greater bandwidth in order for the process to complete in a timely fashion. You’ll have to consider the cost of the additional network bandwidth required.
4. Security over public networks should be of concern, make sure that the enabling software encrypts the data before it is sent over the network and offers ‘end-to-end’ encryption.
5. Networks today are more reliable than ever but enabling technology should still include a strong re-connection mechanism. You don’t want your backup or data transfer to fail and have to re-start all over again because a connection to the internet or service provider was lost, even if it was momentarily. This is especially true for laptop backup, where they regularly lose their connection or move between networks or access points due to the portability of the device, power saving and hibernation options.
Redstor's cloud services include our ever-growing Online Backup service which currently protects upwards of 500TB of data and Redstor Protector, our Laptop Encryption and Backup service. If you require any further information around Cloud services and how these can help you adapt your business please call our office on 0118 9515 200.
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Legal firm leaks personal data
The personal details of thousands of Sky broadband customers have been leaked on to the internet following a breach in security of a legal firm's website. The full story is available here.
This incident is now being reviewed by the Information Commisioner's Office (ICO), who since April 2010 have had the authority to levy organisations with fines of up to £500,000 for not taking the appropriate steps to protect confidential and personal data.
Redstor have been focused on data protection as part of our service portfolio around Data Storage and Cloud based backups.
Redstor Protector is a unique 'cloud' service that secures and protects confidential and sensitive information held on PCs and Laptops in the event of data loss or theft.
Combining policy-driven PC backup, at rest encryption, remote data deletion, port access control and device trace into a single product suite, Redstor Protector allows you to secure, backup and recover your data with ease.
For further information on Redstor Protector or any of our other services, please call 0118 9515 200.
This incident is now being reviewed by the Information Commisioner's Office (ICO), who since April 2010 have had the authority to levy organisations with fines of up to £500,000 for not taking the appropriate steps to protect confidential and personal data.
Redstor have been focused on data protection as part of our service portfolio around Data Storage and Cloud based backups.
Redstor Protector is a unique 'cloud' service that secures and protects confidential and sensitive information held on PCs and Laptops in the event of data loss or theft.
Combining policy-driven PC backup, at rest encryption, remote data deletion, port access control and device trace into a single product suite, Redstor Protector allows you to secure, backup and recover your data with ease.
For further information on Redstor Protector or any of our other services, please call 0118 9515 200.
Thursday 23 September 2010
Backup Issues and Online Backup
The 360IT event in Earl’s Court London yesterday it highlighted some key data protection issues within the IT industry particularly within the UK. UK based SME’s are amongst the least prepared for disaster recovery planning.
Key figures from the research highlighted the following:
· 44%* did not have the ability to recover data to alternative hardware.
· 50%* of those surveyed admitted to suffering the consequences of downtime at some point in the last 6 months.
*(of 70 SME’s surveyed by Acronis)
Further researched conducted by Vanson Bourne surveyed 600 SME’s which produced some intriguing results.
· 72% of SME’s still rely on an end of day backup strategy which for smaller organisations is recommended, however, considering the survey questioned organisations with the number of employees ranging from 250-1,000 one may expected the hourly incremental data changes to be significant with the potential for data loss to be unthinkable should such a situation arise.
· 10% of SME’s only carry out weekly backups.
· The research also highlighted that for companies whose core competencies are not in IT backup and recovery issues can be extremely stressful with 59% of IT managers feeling stressed and under pressure to deliver.
· In the UK 38% of firms are failing to address desktop backup and laptop backup. Considering a large portion of live “work in progress” data is stored on end user machines this is leaving UK SME’s unnecessarily vulnerable to data loss.
The event also highlighted an industry shift towards “online backup or cloud backup” which is Redstor’s main focus and in particular emphasis on the ability to recover to alternative hardware if the need arises.
The real question for businesses operating in the knowledge economy today is what price can really be put on the safety and security of your data?
Redstor has been addressing these backup and storage issues since 1998 with Redstor Protector, Online Backup and Schools’ Backup as well as enterprise storage solutions and managed storage services for EMC and other recognised industry players.
Key figures from the research highlighted the following:
· 44%* did not have the ability to recover data to alternative hardware.
· 50%* of those surveyed admitted to suffering the consequences of downtime at some point in the last 6 months.
*(of 70 SME’s surveyed by Acronis)
Further researched conducted by Vanson Bourne surveyed 600 SME’s which produced some intriguing results.
· 72% of SME’s still rely on an end of day backup strategy which for smaller organisations is recommended, however, considering the survey questioned organisations with the number of employees ranging from 250-1,000 one may expected the hourly incremental data changes to be significant with the potential for data loss to be unthinkable should such a situation arise.
· 10% of SME’s only carry out weekly backups.
· The research also highlighted that for companies whose core competencies are not in IT backup and recovery issues can be extremely stressful with 59% of IT managers feeling stressed and under pressure to deliver.
· In the UK 38% of firms are failing to address desktop backup and laptop backup. Considering a large portion of live “work in progress” data is stored on end user machines this is leaving UK SME’s unnecessarily vulnerable to data loss.
The event also highlighted an industry shift towards “online backup or cloud backup” which is Redstor’s main focus and in particular emphasis on the ability to recover to alternative hardware if the need arises.
The real question for businesses operating in the knowledge economy today is what price can really be put on the safety and security of your data?
Redstor has been addressing these backup and storage issues since 1998 with Redstor Protector, Online Backup and Schools’ Backup as well as enterprise storage solutions and managed storage services for EMC and other recognised industry players.
Business Continuity Checklist and Data Recovery Plan
Redstor has been providing backup solutions since 1998 and here is a very high level check list of what you should be addressing when considering your backup and business continuity plans:
Key questions to ask about your business?
1. Do you have a recovery process in place and most importantly is it up to date?
2. Do you backup your data every day?
3. What do you really backup and is all of your critical data protected?
4. Do you have an offsite copy of your data if you lose the primary site?
5. Can you restore to alternative hardware if necessary?
6. Can you take preventive measures for any or all of the following:
Computer Room destruction
Software/Hardware Vandalism
Software Virus protection
Prolonged absence of key personnel
Hardware theft
Systems operation faults
Redstor has been providing business advice on business continuity and in particular backup, recovery and archiving since 1998. Redstor also has its own online backup platform and storage cloud based in the UK and consequently the advice we provide to all our commercial end user customers is based upon actual hands on experience.
For more information on Redstor’s services please contact us on 01189 515200 or alternatively email sales@redstor.com
Farid Ouazzani
Key questions to ask about your business?
1. Do you have a recovery process in place and most importantly is it up to date?
2. Do you backup your data every day?
3. What do you really backup and is all of your critical data protected?
4. Do you have an offsite copy of your data if you lose the primary site?
5. Can you restore to alternative hardware if necessary?
6. Can you take preventive measures for any or all of the following:
Computer Room destruction
Software/Hardware Vandalism
Software Virus protection
Prolonged absence of key personnel
Hardware theft
Systems operation faults
Redstor has been providing business advice on business continuity and in particular backup, recovery and archiving since 1998. Redstor also has its own online backup platform and storage cloud based in the UK and consequently the advice we provide to all our commercial end user customers is based upon actual hands on experience.
For more information on Redstor’s services please contact us on 01189 515200 or alternatively email sales@redstor.com
Farid Ouazzani
Tuesday 21 September 2010
Redstor exhibiting at Socitm Conference, Brighton 10th-12th October
Redstor are exhibiting at the Socitm conference 2010 to be held at The Hilton Brighton Metropole Hotel in Brighton from Sunday 10th October to Tuesday 12th October.
The Socitm conference is a chance for public sector organisations to discuss how to address the challenges presented by the looming spending review and general economic backdrop of financial uncertainty.
A number of Local Authorities are already re-designing their service delivery models using CentraStage and we believe that other public sector organisations will follow suit over the coming months and years.
If you would like to meet with us to discuss any of our services around Cloud Storage, Online Backup or Data Protection and doing more, for less then please call us on 0118 951 5200 or e-mail sales@redstor.com
The Socitm conference is a chance for public sector organisations to discuss how to address the challenges presented by the looming spending review and general economic backdrop of financial uncertainty.
A number of Local Authorities are already re-designing their service delivery models using CentraStage and we believe that other public sector organisations will follow suit over the coming months and years.
If you would like to meet with us to discuss any of our services around Cloud Storage, Online Backup or Data Protection and doing more, for less then please call us on 0118 951 5200 or e-mail sales@redstor.com
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Redstor launches CV Backup!
Redstor have this week launched CV Backup, our recruitment industry specific Online Backup service which is fully automated and encrypts confidential data such as CV’s, payroll details and terms of business.
Instead of old-fashioned and manual tape backups taking place at recruitment business’ nationwide; this service will fully automate the backups and empower recruiters to spend more of their time and energy focused on bringing in revenues.
Managing Director Paul Evans said, “We’ve identified the recruitment industry as an ideal opportunity for our Online Backup service following the success we’ve had in the education sector protecting sensitive and confidential data. We believe this compliments our existing portfolio of data protection services extremely well, which include Redstor Protector. In these times of austerity, we believe the recruitment industry to play a vital part on the road to recovery and wish to enable them to get on with their task in hand.”
CV Backup is fully compatible with all recruitment CRM software packages including Bond Adapt, Eclipse, Itris, Red Rabbit and RDB Pro. Data is compressed, encrypted to 128 bit AES and sent to one of our secure state of the art data centres before it is replicated to a second secure Redstor data centre assuring the data is safely offsite for disaster recovery and regulatory compliance purposes. When data recovery is required, users can simply select the data to restore using an intuitive interface or for large data sets, the data can be returned to site for local, high speed LAN based recovery.
For further information, please e-mail sales@redstor.com quoting the reference 'CV Backup' or call our Sales Team on 0118 9515 200
Instead of old-fashioned and manual tape backups taking place at recruitment business’ nationwide; this service will fully automate the backups and empower recruiters to spend more of their time and energy focused on bringing in revenues.
Managing Director Paul Evans said, “We’ve identified the recruitment industry as an ideal opportunity for our Online Backup service following the success we’ve had in the education sector protecting sensitive and confidential data. We believe this compliments our existing portfolio of data protection services extremely well, which include Redstor Protector. In these times of austerity, we believe the recruitment industry to play a vital part on the road to recovery and wish to enable them to get on with their task in hand.”
CV Backup is fully compatible with all recruitment CRM software packages including Bond Adapt, Eclipse, Itris, Red Rabbit and RDB Pro. Data is compressed, encrypted to 128 bit AES and sent to one of our secure state of the art data centres before it is replicated to a second secure Redstor data centre assuring the data is safely offsite for disaster recovery and regulatory compliance purposes. When data recovery is required, users can simply select the data to restore using an intuitive interface or for large data sets, the data can be returned to site for local, high speed LAN based recovery.
For further information, please e-mail sales@redstor.com quoting the reference 'CV Backup' or call our Sales Team on 0118 9515 200
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Redstor featured in Government Technology Magazine
Redstor have recently been featured in Government Technology magazine talking about how budget cuts will impact public sector departments and how they can cope in this age of austerity and change.
You can view the article online at - http://www.governmenttechnology.co.uk/content/view/2251/33/
Government Technology magazine is the business magazine for Government technology.
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Redstor have been focused on data management and protection since 1998 and have created one of the largest service provider enabled storage infrastructures (storage clouds) in the UK. Redstor Online Backup is re-branded by numerous well known service organisations and is the engine behind the Redstor Backup Service for Schools (RBUSS). Over 80 Local Authorities and education service providers use Redstor's online service to backup and restore the data of over 12,000 addressable schools in the UK.
You can view the article online at - http://www.governmenttechnology.co.uk/content/view/2251/33/
Government Technology magazine is the business magazine for Government technology.
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Redstor have been focused on data management and protection since 1998 and have created one of the largest service provider enabled storage infrastructures (storage clouds) in the UK. Redstor Online Backup is re-branded by numerous well known service organisations and is the engine behind the Redstor Backup Service for Schools (RBUSS). Over 80 Local Authorities and education service providers use Redstor's online service to backup and restore the data of over 12,000 addressable schools in the UK.
Thursday 9 September 2010
Redstor at the Reading Expo - Madejski Stadium
Redstor exhibited at the Reading Expo hosted at Reading Football Club's Madejski Stadium earlier this week which was attended by a number of delegates from various local businesses and organisations. We showcased our knowledge around solving organisation’s storage and backup challenges and key cloud services as well as protecting sensitive data and remotely managing devices. The event was a good opportunity for us to interact with local businesses from big to small and further established our name and increased our awareness within the local area.
We are keen to continue with attending and supporting local exhibitions and will look to speak at such local events in the future.
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Redstor have been focused on data management and protection since 1998 and have created one of the largest service provider enabled storage infrastructures (storage clouds) in the UK. Redstor Online Backup is re-branded by numerous well known service organisations and is the engine behind the Redstor Backup Service for Schools (RBUSS). Over 80 Local Authorities and education service providers use Redstor's online service to backup and restore the data of over 12,000 addressable schools in the UK.
We are keen to continue with attending and supporting local exhibitions and will look to speak at such local events in the future.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Redstor have been focused on data management and protection since 1998 and have created one of the largest service provider enabled storage infrastructures (storage clouds) in the UK. Redstor Online Backup is re-branded by numerous well known service organisations and is the engine behind the Redstor Backup Service for Schools (RBUSS). Over 80 Local Authorities and education service providers use Redstor's online service to backup and restore the data of over 12,000 addressable schools in the UK.
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