Castle Vale Community Housing Association has replaced its tape-based backup and recovery infrastructure with a cloud-based, managed service from Phoenix. The new service is faster and more reliable than its previous infrastructure and offers ‘pay as you grow’ scalability.
Mohammed Sarfraz, IT & network administrator, Castle Vale Community Housing Association, said, “We need to ensure our systems are available, data isn’t lost and we have access to up-to-date information to run our business, for people to work productively, and to serve tenants who expect to receive high levels of service from us at all times.
“12 servers support business-critical activities and include two Citrix servers, two SQL Servers, the core housing management system, a finance server and a file and print server. These are all are covered by Phoenix’s traditional and cloud-based Recovery Assurance services. It is essential that these systems work at all times so that, whatever happens, we can ensure continuity of service.”
Castle Vale began using Phoenix for business continuity services in 2005. Sarfraz said, “That’s worked exceptionally well. We’ve run numerous tests, at least twice a year, and invoked the service at least once a year, for example if a server fails, and every time it has been a success.”
Phoenix was then asked to provide offsite data backup and data storage. Sarfraz said, “Tape backups meant additional time and resources, and it took longer to restore when problems arose, for example if data became corrupted. And because of the backup schedule, we weren’t getting the most up-to-date data restored either. Now, we can restore instantly from the same day and so waste less time.
“If you need anything, the Phoenix staff suggest the right approach rather than trying to sell us more. Phoenix is quick to respond, and the quality of service is very good; for example, understanding our set-up and building Citrix servers at their end before installing them on site. And when you call, you know they’ll take action without you having to go through lots of people. And Phoenix’s prices are certainly competitive with the rest of the market: price-wise, it’s bang on.”
