Redstor and EMC hosting UK launch event for Cloud storage services

Following the recent launch of our suite of cloud storage services, EMC have joined forces with us here at Redstor in hosting a series of UK launch events in London and Birmingham next month.

Many organisations, including FTSE 100 enterprises and household names are looking to the cloud as a way to alleviate costs and mitigate risks, whilst matching their IT requirements to their business requirements.

Is now the right time for you to look to the cloud? Are you considering building your own private storage cloud or having aspects of your data stored in a public storage cloud? Do you have serious questions about the choice of technology, the best route to implementation or whether your internal processes are ready?

If you answered yes to any of those questions and/or are keen to find out more about our cloud services then why not attend one of our FREE UK launch events? Simply click here to register and you could also win an Apple iPad!

E-Safety powered by Securus on Safer Internet Day

Today is Safer Internet Day, where several organisations come together to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones amongst children and young people across the world.

The current schooling generation are growing up with mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads at their fingertips as normal and are becoming more and more tuned in with technology. This in itself has hardened children's attitudes and behaviour, as seen in the reports in today's news that 20% of 11-15 year olds have received a sexually explicit text or e-mail in the past year.

One way in which schools can meet their Ofsted requirement for safeguarding and ensure their students are safe whilst online is using E-Safety by Redstor. This solution is powered by Securus and sits silently in the background and monitors everything that occurs on a student's PC without raising immediate alarm and disrupting the lesson if inappropriate content is detected. E-safety by Redstor addresses the pertinent challenge of protecting school children as young as 5 from inappropriate behaviour, content and cyberbullying whilst using ICT and the internet as part of their normal classroom education.

If you'd like to hear more about Securus powered E-Safety by Redstor, then please call our Reading office on +44118 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

Redstor displays it's cloud services at BETT 2011

Another brilliant day at BETT 2011 for Redstor yesterday, several key meetings and a large amount of interest from passing visitors.

On our stand we're demonstrating V4 of CentraStage, our remote monitoring and support tool currently used by over 30 Local Authorities and private sector providers across the country.

CentraStage V4 introduces the ComStore, an integrated application store that allows CentraStage users to download and deploy pre-packaged software to their managed IT estate, regardless of network or location. Core features such as audit, configuration, monitoring, remote support and reporting are all enhanced, while new services and functionality available via the ComStore will include additional reports, monitors, scripts and dashboard widgets as well as 3rd party software packages.

Why wouldn't you want to come and find out more about CentraStage V4 and our continuation of providing cloud services into the education space? We're on stand U23 at BETT. If you can't make it to BETT, our main office is available on +44 118 951 5200

E-safety at BETT 2011

Day 1 feedback from our team at BETT 2011 has been fantastic. Yesterday was a very positive day with a large number of meetings and the launch of Redstor e-safety has been extremely well received by our education partners.

Prior to BETT 2011, The Guardian ran an article on e-safety and safeguarding which references the launch of Redstor e-safety at BETT 2011.

"And Redstor, a managed services provider, has teamed up with Securus on a new e-safety service for local authority networks. It flags up child protection and behavioural issues, such as the use of proxy bypass sites, as well as key words indicating self-harm and drugs."

If you wish to find out more about Redstor e-safety then you can either visit us on stand U23 at BETT this week or call our Main Office on +44 118 951 5200.

Redstor launches e-safety service

Redstor are pleased to formally announce the launch of our new e-safety service. We are looking forward to discussing this in depth with our education channel partners at BETT show this week, where we have a record high number of appointments and meetings.

Redstor, a leading managed services, cloud storage and IT solutions provider, has today launched a new e-Safety service. Redstor e-Safety will be available to Local Authority and education IT service providers in the UK to help schools protect against the rising threat of cyber bullying.

Redstor will continue to work through its vast network of partners and build upon relationships with over 85 Local Authorities and education service providers to provide this new e-safety service to schools and educational establishments.

Redstor e-Safety, powered by Securus, will ensure a safe online working environment for pupils and teachers by capturing ICT issues and misuse. The service identifies and captures incidents such as cyberbullying, access to harmful web sites, the un-safe or inappropriate use of email, computer programs and online applications.

The launch of Redstor e-Safety comes at a time when Ofsted has highlighted Internet safety and the importance of safeguarding against online bullying and cyber abuse while providing pupils with increased access to Internet based technologies.

The new service captures child protection and behavioral issues such as the use of proxy bypass sites, contact with strangers, inappropriate content uploaded to a school’s network as well as key words indicating self-harm and drugs.

Paul Evans, Managing Director at Redstor, said: “Redstor e-Safety allows pupils and staff to feel more confident about using new technologies, safe in the knowledge the ICT network is monitored and protected.”

Evans continues, “Ofsted has stated that Headteachers must meet a legal duty of care to protect pupils and staff and provide a safe learning environment yet without monitoring technology many schools are unaware if a pupil is at risk on-line. Redstor e-Safety allows Schools and ICT service providers to safely manage any schools ICT network, providing a constant vigil for pupils and staff.”

Intrigued? Redstor will be at stand U23 at BETT, where we will be happy to answer your questions.

BETT 2011

Next week, Redstor will be exhibiting at BETT 2011, the largest education technology exhibition in the world. This will be our 6th consecutive year of exhibiting and is a brilliant way for us to interact with our channel partners in the education sector including Local Authorities and service providers.

At BETT 2011, we will also be formally launching our new Cloud e-safety service, this is a combination of technical training for pupils and content monitoring. Specifically this helps to eliminate cyber bullying, illegal activity, breaches of child safety and enables schools to achieve more than "Satisfactory" mark for the category "Safeguarding" in their annual OFSTED reports.

Paul Evans, Redstor's Managing Director said, "The whole team is highly enthused ahead of BETT, we've got over 60 meetings booked which is a record high for us. We're all very excited to be meeting our existing and new partners to discuss new services to deliver; in particular e-safety which we believe further strengthens our position within education. "

Intrigued? We're at Stand U23 if you'd like to find out more - if you wish to book an appointment to meet with us at BETT then please call 0118 9515 200.

Access to the cloud, whatever the weather

Redstor Cloud Storage is an easy to use online storage solution providing business-grade storage over the internet or a secure dedicated link that scales up and down to any capacity and allows you to pay only for the storage you use. It offers elastic capacity on demand and allows access to your stored data at any time and from anywhere.

Typically suited to data that doesn't requite high performance access such as user data, file based archives, infrequently accessed files or backup data. You no longer need to purchase, implement and manage physical storage systems in your own data centre thus you can avoid capital outlays, purchasing delays and reduce your IT costs. Instead, you pay as a monthly operating expense much in the same way you would any other utilities.

Redstor Cloud Storage is always available and so it only takes minutes to setup and expands as you use it. Storage maintenance tasks such as backup, data replication and expansion become Redstor's responsibility allowing you to mitigate risks and focus on your core business.

Is Co-operation the way forward for Local Authorities?

One of the cornerstones of the Coalition Government being formed earlier this year was their promise to streamline public services in order to deliver cost savings on the nation's route out of the recession.

Part of this may come in the form of Local Authorities being given the incentive to deliver services to other areas outside of their Geographical remit - you can read more here. This would see Local Authorities recognised more as Commercial organisations and given the ability to act as such. Local Authorities would be able to cut costs by launching shared services - this would in turn enable them to hit their targets for the Carbon Reduction Scheme by sharing Data Centres instead of running and maintaining separate Data Centres.

Redstor have been working with our Local Authority partners to provide services that make their lives and jobs easier by helping them deliver shared services. Instead of each individual Local Authority investing in their own new Data Centres to power backup solutions; 85 of them now backup their data to our Data Centres through RBUSS which allows us all to save energy and have a greener approach to ICT.

Through our Remote Management & Monitoring tool CentraStage, Local Authorities can automate repetitive tasks and share knowledge pools of which tasks to automate in order to free up resources. Dozens of Local Authorities are already working in this manner to co-operate and help each other do more with less.

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.

Education Investor Awards 2010 - 1 week to go

This time next week a number of the Redstor team will be donning their gladrags for the 2010 Education Investor Awards at The Grosvenor House Hotel on London's Park Lane.

The Education Investor Awards celebrate innovation and excellence in the UK's education industry and Redstor have been nominated in the category of "Best Supplier to the Education sector".

Redstor's Managing Director, Paul Evans said "We are very proud to have been nominated for this award following our continued hard work in the Education sector over the past 5 years. We are now working with over 85 Local Authority partners who address 14,000 schools to deliver relevant services that simplify their lives and enable them to focus on high value tasks and efforts. As part of our work with those partners we have introduced new services such as CentraStage, our device management tool and RBUSS Mobile which is our laptop encryption and backup service. We are also looking at other new technologies to launch in the new year to address the challenges of 21st century ICT service delivery. Now, we are all looking forward to enjoying the awards!"

Tape is dead, long live the cloud

Sony announced yesterday that after 30 glorious years, they will no longer be producing their iconic Walkman which plays cassette tapes.

This is further vindication that "The Digital age" is setting in and transforming the way in which data and media is consumed and used. Long gone are the days when people would listen to their cassette tapes and watch their Betamax when they got home from work. Now, people want their Beatles album or their television in crystal clear quality.

The same is becoming increasingly apparent for the majority of organisations when it comes to their IT requirements. Fed up with the manual processes, poor quality and local hardware associated with tape backups, it's now more about having the business agility to backup data cheaply, easily and with the least risk possible.

Sony stopping production of the Cassette opens the door for the cloud to transform the music industry. People will now expect to be able to access and consume their music whether they're at home, at work, travelling, at the gym or generally on the move - but without being restricted to just the music available on their local device.

Redstor have helped organisations make the switch over the past 5 years with our successful Online Backup service and will continue to do so in 2011 and beyond with the launch of cloud storage with EMC. We are well versed in aiding organisations on their journey from heritage backup methods such as tape, to cutting edge cloud services.

We are conducting a survey on LinkedIn asking when we will see the end of tape backups in the corporate Data Centre - to have your say click here
If you require advice from the experts on how to change the record, then please call Redstor on 0118 9515 200.

Local Authority workshops

As part of Redstor's work with Local Authorities up and down the country, we are hosting a series of workshops next week for our LA partners to attend. Here, we will be discussing both current and future challenges the industry and LA's are facing such as headcount reductions, various grants being cut, pressures to reduce internal costs and schools' demand for better services for less money.

A number of our Local Authority partners are already using our technology to offer out shared services and revamp the way in which they deliver services to their schools to make them more relevant and agile in this era of austerity.

The workshops will be attended by Heads of Service/CIO's of various sized Local Authorities who are all drawn together by a desire to improve service levels and network with their fellow peers.

Redstor and 8el Partnership Announcement

Redstor, a leading managed services, cloud storage and IT solutions provider, has today announced its partnership with 8el, an established provider of communications solutions including IP telephony, ISP services and Wide/Local Area Networks (W/LAN). The partnership will allow 8el to resell Redstor’s online backup service to UK based customers in order to meet their specific business communication needs.


This partnership is part of Redstor’s growth plans to expand its customer base and its sales force through reseller partnership programs. The partnership will allow 8el to focus on expanding its service offering with Redstor providing the back end infrastructure for 8el to offer its existing customer base online data storage.


Commenting on the partnership, Justin Hamilton-Martin, Managing Director at 8el, said: “8el is continuing to launch cloud based services, complementing our existing portfolio. Online Data Storage is expected to be a significant area of growth for our business and 8el are pleased to be partnering with Redstor to provide an invaluable storage solution”


Paul Evans, Managing Director at Redstor, commented: “Today’s partnership announcement will allow 8el to offer its customers on-line data back-up services without the worry of planning or managing the technical infrastructure of the service. Redstor will handle the management of the information, allowing 8el to grow its business by providing its customers with industry leading repeatable added-value services.”

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.

7 days to go...

It's 7 days until Redstor will be exhibiting at the upcoming annual 3 day Socitm Conference 2010 in Brighton.
Socitm 2010: tomorrow’s public services today runs over three days with top speakers and fellow delegates bringing the audience bang up to date on key unfolding agendas: open data and transparency; G-cloud; smart commissioning; customer access and channel shift; ICT strategy for austerity; PSN; shared services and personal data.

Redstor will be exhibiting alongside some of the top ICT companies such as Microsoft and Oracle.

With the delegates at the conference being senior ICT decision makers from Local Government and public sector organisations, it will provide a great opportunity for Redstor to network with new names and catch up with Local Authorities who we currently work with.

With the public sector facing the most draconian cuts in living memory, radical business transformation is the only option for public sector organisations. IT leaders and their teams need new skills, new models of service delivery and even a whole new culture.
Redstor's message has never been more relevant!

More information on the conference itself can be found HERE

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.

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.

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.

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.

Zurich Insurance fined £2.3m over customers' data loss

After our blog last week on the BBC losing laptops and mobile phones, it has been revealed that the UK operation of Zurich Insurance has been fined £2.27m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for losing personal details of 46,000 customers.

It is the highest fine levied on a single firm for data security failings.

The data on policyholders, including in some cases bank account and credit card information, went missing in August 2008.

However, Zurich did not become aware of the loss until a year later, when it then began notifying customers.

The information went missing during a routine transfer to a data storage centre in South Africa.

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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.

BBC Staff Lose Mobile Devices

BBC staff have lost £241,019 worth of laptops and mobiles over the past two years, a Freedom of Information request has revealed - http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/8/9/bbc-staff-lose-gadgets-worth-240000/

According to BBC News, a total of 65 mobile phones, 17 BlackBerry smartphones and 146laptops devices have been reported lost or stolen by BBC employees over the two year period.

The information released by the organisation included data from every BBC subsidiary.

The data revealed that the value of stolen or lost laptops amounted to £219,000 while mobile phones and BlackBerry devices were valued at £12,913 and £9,106.

The BBC has revealed that, out of the stolen or lost items, around 19 items worth £23,450 were recovered, reducing the losses to £217,569.

With Redstor Protector, the BBC could have avoided this embarassing situation and protected potentially sensitive data held on those devices. For only a few pence per day, per PC or laptop, Redstor Protector offers complete portable device protection and helps protect against a data breach/loss:

Encryption – to secure portable devices and to protect sensitive information from unauthorised access
Backup and Recovery – to recover sensitive data when it is damaged, lost or stolen
Data Deletion – to remotely delete data stored on portable devices that have been lost or stolen or where data is no longer required to be kept
Port Access Control – to help prevent unauthorised data leaving portable devices
Device Trace – to help prevent portable device theft and help Police locate devices if they come back online

A simple and effective way of protecting valuable information, Protector will secure against even the most irresponsible employees and protect sensitive data in the event that it is lost or stolen.
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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.