Redstor announces partnership with Nasuni

Redstor have announced our partnership with Nasuni, creator of the storage industry's leading cloud storage gateway. We developed our partnership with Nasuni through our EMC Atmos relationship and have been working with Nasuni since the final quarter of 2010.

Redstor are now able to offer our expanding customer base the Cloud NAS by Redstor service which utilises the Nasuni filer solution. This creates a secure, high performance NAS server with a connection to the Redstor Cloud Storage Platform. The Nasuni Filer simplifies access, storage and protection whilst eliminating any incremental expense and management issues inherent in hardware expansion.

Cloud NAS can be used as primary storage instead of, or in combination with traditional file servers as it provisions storage capacity automatically and delivers local-like performance. Features include synchronous snapshots, deduplication and encryption plus key management for security. Currently the Nasuni Filer manages tens of millions of files securely.

Cloud NAS by Redstor is one of three new online storage services powered by EMC Atmos. Redstor will utilise Atmos in our Cloud Storage Platform, hosted in geographically diverse data centres to provide secure cloud storage services to help customers of all sizes develop an overall cloud storage strategy.

Commenting on the partnership, Andres Rodriguez, CEO at Nasuni, said: "We are always looking to partner with leading cloud providers and are excited to be advancing our UK efforts with an established provider focused on delivering the best solution available to customers. We spent the last year building a loyal customer base and are now enabling partners to leverage our solution to provide customers the functionality of a traditional NAS while benefiting from the scalable, redundant and on demand features of the cloud. We are looking forward to working with Redstor and are pleased to be partnering with such a customer-centric organisation."

Tony Ruane, Business Development Director at Redstor, said "The Nasuni partnership has been developed as a result of the demand we have seen from our customers over the last five years for cloud offerings that move data to lower-cost storage locations. Nasuni allows us to deliver unlimited file storage via the cloud and complete protection from a single virtual file server, effectively opening the floodgates to our storage and driving increased recurring income to our partners. We are very pleased to be working with such an expert in the file storage sector."

For more information on Cloud NAS by Redstor, please call our Reading office on +44 118 951 5200.

Redstor wins cloud services for business award

As part of EMC's record breaking launch of their unified storage suite of products, today they hosted a Partner launch event. This was attended by a number of Redstor employees and alongside the launch of unified storage, there were also further details released about EMC Atmos. EMC Atmos is the new cloud software behind Redstor's new cloud storage services - Redstor Cloud Silo, Redstor Cloud NAS and Redstor Cloud Drive.

Redstor's cloud storage services enable organisations to scale up or down their storage requirements in line with their business requirements as well as mitigate risks and gain greater financial control with predictable costs.

EMC have recognised the hard work and development Redstor have put in on this journey to the cloud thus far, which has resulted in Redstor winning "EMC's cloud innovation partner of the year" award.

Tony Ruane, Redstor's Business Development Director said, "We're really pleased that our efforts have been recognised and foresee 2011 to be a year of significant growth around our cloud services."

Let this be the first of many recognitions we receive for blazing a trail in the cloud industry!

Curious as to our success in the cloud? Call our Reading office on +44 118 951 5200

US Government moves to the Cloud

At the tail end of last week, the US Government announced plans to reduce it's number of Data Centres by 38% over the next 5 years as they move to the cloud.

The key driver behind their adoption of the cloud is the ability to rapidly scale their IT requirements with increased flexibility in the face of quickly changing business needs. Just as key however, is being able to operate on a pay as you go model with no up front investment and further investment only required as the service scales. Additionally, the move will straighten out lengthy procurement cycles and certification processes meaning that further efficiencies can be made on a business level as well as a technology level.

Redstor have been providing cloud services for the past 5 years to help organisations achieve goals which are similar to those of the world's largest and most powerful Government. Through using our Online Backup, Redstor Protector and Online Backup Plus services; organisations have been able to scale their IT requirements to match those of the business and reduce capital expenditure as well as mitigating risks associated with managing internal solutions. We're just 22 days away from the next chapter of our Cloud Services story when we launch Cloud Storage in conjunction with EMC which will offer elastic capacity on demand.

If it's the right time for the US Government to look to the cloud, is it the right time for your organisation to look to the cloud with us? Call Redstor on 0118 9515 200 if you wish to find out more.

Cloud Computing "could boost EU Economy"

A recent news story on the BBC website has outlined that the growth of the cloud computing industry within the EU could give the economies within a much needed growth injection over the next five years. It's anticipated that 466,000 net new jobs would be created each year as well as providing an additional €177bn per year. Of the 5 major economies in the EU, only Germany is expected to see more dividends from this than the UK.

This will come off the back of organisations moving from a 'classic' environment of having local solutions and the necessity to maintain and support those to having business agile, cloud services on a pay as you use model.

Through moving to an environment compromising of cloud services, organisations can completely scale their IT to their business requirements rapidly. Instead of making purchases for large scale solutions out of capital expenditure, organisations can now treat IT as a utility much in the same way as they would consume Energy and Communications.

If you wish to increase the flexibility of your IT services and look to the cloud then Redstor are well placed to assist you as we have been offering cloud services since 2005; amassing 800TB+ of data and in excess of 15,000 end user customers of these services in that time. The next cloud service we'll be launching is Cloud Storage in 28 days time in conjuction with EMC which enable organisations to scale up their storage capacity in line with their business/project demands. Please feel free to call our Reading office on 0118 9515 200 for further details.

Cloud Storage from Redstor - the countdown is on...

With just 52 days left until the launch of Cloud Storage from Redstor in conjunction with EMC, the industry as a whole are looking at ways to "cloudify" their solutions to integrate with ATMOS.

The latest of these is Riverbed with the launch of Riverbed Whitewater which is a cloud storage accelerator that works with existing backup software to securely accelerate and de-duplicate data to the public cloud, and enable fast restore at any time.

You can read more about Riverbed's journey to the cloud here.

In January 2011, Redstor will be one of the first UK companies to offer cloud storage services powered by the EMC Atmos platform. It will offer its customers the opportunity to reduce costs, mitigate risks and migrate to a virtual data centre with confidence and ease whilst minimalising the up front capital expenditures previously associated. The partnership is part of Redstor’s growth plans to increase its cloud service portfolio and compliments existing services Online Backup and Protector.

Redstor partners with EMC to launch Cloud Storage in UK

Redstor, a managed services, cloud storage and IT solutions provider has today announced a partnership with EMC Atmos to offer customers access to the EMC Atmos cloud storage platform. The partnership will allow Redstor to offer four new cloud storage services that will utilise the EMC Atmos platform.

Redstor is one of the first UK companies to offer cloud storage services powered by the EMC Atmos platform. It will offer its customers the opportunity to reduce costs, mitigate risks and migrate to a virtual data centre with confidence and ease whilst minimalising the up front capital expenditures previously associated. The partnership is part of Redstor’s growth plans to increase its cloud service portfolio and compliments existing services Online Backup and Protector.

The partnership will allow software vendor partners to interface effectively with its data centres and deliver an easy virtual drive to manually migrate data to the cloud. Policy based, intelligent file information tiering, long tail information retention and clone backup copies will also be offered as part of the Redstor EMC Atmos solution.

Commenting on the partnership Tony Ruane, Business Development Director at Redstor said: “EMC Atmos will form a key part of our infrastructure. We see a huge demand from our customers and partners for cloud offerings that move data to lower-cost storage locations. Not all data is created equal and, thanks to some fantastic economies-of-scale, we can often store customer data in the cloud much more effectively than by storing it on site. The open EMC Atmos Application Programme Interface means that our independent software vendor partners can interface with our data centres to deliver compelling end-user services, effectively opening the floodgates to our storage and driving increased revenues for us and our partners.”

This has been reported on by many online publications including (but not limited to) CBR Online, IT News Online, IT Director, CIO and IT Analysis.

For further information on how you can ensure your business agility with Redstor's cloud services, please call 0118 9515 200

Redstor at IP Expo 2010

Redstor spent this Wednesday and Thursday at IP Expo in Earls Court, London with EMC. We were invited to talk to their customers as well as press and analysts about our cloud storage services.

In January we’ll be launching a range of additional cloud storage and online backup services based on EMC Atmos and it was a great opportunity to spread the message and gain some great feedback. We spent time talking about the practical applications for these new services- such as cloud archiving and online NAS. The show was an interesting mix of infrastructure suppliers selling the latest technology as well as a few true cloud suppliers.

Without doubt next year we’ll see more cloud providers and more emphasis from the traditional vendors on their cloud offerings. We left the show with some great new ideas and business opportunities. Watch this blog for updates on the new cloud services.

Cloud Storage

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!