True cloud-to-cloud protection

Businesses need the assurance that Office 365 will be fully protected when they migrate core infrastructure to the cloud. The need is more pressing when it comes to not-for-profit organisations, the majority of which rely on funding and sponsorship to continue to provide their service and can ill-afford to spend money on additional on-premises hardware to back up the solution.

Management at UK’s leading vet charity, The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), understand this situation only too well and, thanks to its partnership with leading international provider of next-generation data management technology Redstor, has a powerfully positive story to tell about its data-to-the-cloud migration.

There are several key benefits associated with a solution that guarantees full protection of Office 365 to round off a successful cloud migration – complete control, no risk of reliance on a single provider, no need for capital expenditure and the advantage of viewing cloud and onsite data in one place.

The PDSA is an extensive operation with two data centres – one live at Fareham and one DR site at the head office in Telford – as well as a donation centre just outside Birmingham, a call centre in Sunderland, 48 pet hospitals and over 120 shops.

The PDSA needed to make the most of OneDrive, Office 365’s cloud file-storage service, and, while keeping cost efficiency front-of-mind, the charity could not assume that data stored within O365 would automatically be protected against loss or accidental deletion. They understood they could not risk storing sensitive data with a single provider and had to be cognisant of the technology’s retention periods to ensure adequate protection and compliance.

In enforcing its data management and protection strategy, PDSA had to ensure efficiency onsite or in the cloud, and source a solution that is quick to deploy, secure and easy to manage.

Redstor to the rescue

Utilising Redstor, the PDSA ensure that all live Office 365 data can also be accessed from Redstor’s cloud in the event of an emergency, thereby retaining full control over the accessibility and protection of their data.

By providing borderless visibility of local and online data, Redstor can offer organisations like PDSA (and the South African market features a plethora of not-for-profit organisations) the ability to monitor usage at any time, on any device – and set policies across their entire estates.

This enables the PDSA to assign consistent protection policies across its entire data estate, as well as simplify and automate data management with one central, easy-to-use system.

The organisation’s Infrastructure Manager Parmy Rayet said: “We have file servers, Web servers, database servers – a lot we are potentially moving into the cloud. We decided to migrate a lot of users to O365 just before summer of 2018. As we moved more and more people, we obviously needed to keep a backup of it all. Everyone at our head office is on OneDrive and our shop users are about to go on OneDrive.”

Having a separate backup strategy that is in the cloud, PDSA has enjoyed significant savings.

Shaun Searle, Country Manager, Africa Regions, Redstor, says the PDSA service is a powerful example of how any business, whether in the private or public sector, irrespective of how much financial and other resources it has at its disposal, can really benefit from a partnership with Redstor.

“We have unlocked several meaningful benefits for the PDSA and can do the same for any organisation – even registered not-for-profit organisations – in South Africa. These benefits include a consistent data policy, instant access to Office 365 data in the event of an accidental deletion or ransomware attack, and capability to auto-scale protection as demand changes.”

Searle adds that with the advent of POPI in South Africa, organisations will have to review and redefine their data management and protection strategies.

Office 365 and Redstor represent a cost-effective, easily managed and powerful all-in-one solution.