Crewe-based Wulvern Housing Association has moved from ad-hoc, ‘home-grown’ tactics for data storage and security to an automated and streamlined long-term strategy for information back-up with Smartways Technology.
Wulvern previously relied on relatively low-security back-up tapes at its main offices, with the onus on individuals to back up remote PCs on a daily basis. Security was based on in-house, home-grown methods and management systems in different locations. These processes were very labour intensive, open to human error and did not offer the instant data access required for Wulvern’s day-to-day business. Wulvern recognised that it needed to streamline these functions and implement a more automated and reliable way to back up data securely and efficiently.
Andrew Reader, team leader for network systems, Wulvern Housing Association, said, “We chose Smartway’s Touchpoint system to strengthen our business continuity strategy as we now have the ability to restore back from anywhere and are not as reliant on back-up tapes. The process of rotating these tapes offsite has seen a significant reduction in administration since the start of the service. It has streamlined a complex and time-consuming process, reducing the labour intensity and freeing up employee productivity. It also reduces the daily responsibility on one person.”
TouchPoint is an enterprise backup solution, supporting high-level applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server, from single users to hundreds of servers. It also reduces recovery time and restores up to 80 per cent faster compared with traditional tape methods by utilising disk-to-disk back-up technology. Wulvern Housing Association uses the duplicate file-and-compression feature which enables it to perform its full back-up schedule every night over a 4mb SDSL internet link.
Mike Rickards, managing director, Smartways, said, “The cost of data loss is directly related to the type and value of the data stored, for example, key information relating to existing clients and prospects which can have a direct impact on revenue streams. This combined with the costs associated with loss of productivity due to no or limited access to vital information can be catastrophic for small businesses. Therefore businesses need to consider the cost of continuing without the data, the cost of re-creating the data, and the cost of notifying users in the event of a compromise.”
