The Silver Lining of Cloud Disaster Recovery

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The Silver Lining of Cloud Disaster Recovery

At Virtue Technologies we know how time-consuming recovering essential services after a disaster can be if traditional backup systems are in place. 

With one in eight schools suffering an arson attack, and one in fourteen at risk of flooding it’s more important than ever to have an off-site backup and recovery system. This is where Cloud-Based disaster recovery comes into play.

Any incidents of data loss in schools comes under intense scrutiny from parents, the media and the wider public. This means it’s vital to recover the data as quickly as possible to avoid a negative impact on the school’s reputation and avoid disruption to the pupil’s education. 

Schools, like all businesses, have to have robust business continuity plans in place for when the unexpected happens. Be it a natural disaster or as is becoming increasingly common, cyber-attack.

Virtue Technologies offer cloud disaster recovery solutions to ensure essential data is backed up and your school can be fully operational as quickly as possible, often within 24 hours. 

Incident management plans may be in place to initially protect the students and staff in your care, but once the incident has been resolved have you planned what to do next? How do your staff and students continue working?

After devastating flooding in Cumbria, Trinity School in Carlisle was able to have their network back to fully operational faster than any other school in the area. That was thanks to the robust cloud based disaster recovery service they had in place with Virtue Technologies.

Why Cloud Disaster Recovery?

 Virtue Technologies work with Primary schools, secondary schools and Multi-Academy Trusts to offer bespoke cloud disaster recovery options. 

 With Virtue Technologies’ Cloud Disaster Recovery solution, your IT systems can be backed up and fully operational with complete access to staff and student data within 24 hours. 

Data recovery from conventional backup systems could take days or even weeks to have your school up and running, fully restored. 

Many Schools don’t have the staff or budget to implement the disaster recovery plans they need “in house” and the traditional solutions are usually expensive, complex and unreliable with room required for on-site server equipment. 

Cloud-based disaster recovery means the data can be securely accessed from any location and using any device. So if you can’t gain access to certain buildings due to electricity outages, fire or flood then it won’t stop the recovery process. 

Virtue Technologies’ Primary Cloud Backup Solution offers cloud-based backup capabilities. 

We’ll look after your in-house disaster recovery team, ensuring we can deal with any problems as soon as they appear and minimise any downtime for the school, meaning your student’s education suffers the least possible disruption. 

We have various solution packages available to meet your individual school needs.

  • Advanced – A Primary Cloud Backup and recovery-as-a-service solution for up to 1TB of your data – ideal for most Primary Schools and Academies that need a full DR solution
  • Standard – Primary Cloud Backup and restore solution for up to 1TB of your data – ideal for Primary Schools and Academies that want a backup and restore solution
  • Essentials – Primary Cloud Backup solution for up to 11GB of your data – ideal for Primary Schools and Academies only backing SIMS up

Our Primary Cloud Backup comes with the following features and benefits:

  • Encrypted data – keeping your information safe at all times
  • Hosted in a UK Data Centre – keeping your SIMS data ISO 9001, 27001 compliant
  • Managed Data Service – real people that will alert you in the event of a backup failure
  • SIMS Agent – covers SIMS and FMS databases
  • SIMS Backup and Restore – for SIMS and FMS databases
  • Multiple server agents – looking after your core services
  • Virtual Machine Recovery of SIMS Server* – in the event of a disaster, you can recover your data from any location, using any device.
  • 365 Day Retention period** – allowing you to retrieve work for up to a year

*Recovery will take place within 24 hours – presented over the internet to customer if required (Advanced package only)

**Subject to storage plan

Virtue Technologies’ disaster recovery service was specifically created for the education sector and gives schools the ability to recover critical server based information stored on our infrastructure, such as management systems etc and access it from the cloud, meaning you can have your critical systems back up and running, from anywhere, with online access quicker than ever before. 

Keeping one step ahead of the Cyber Criminal

We are seeing an increase in Cyber Criminals targeting back-up data, as well as the on site infrastructure. So in the event of a breach and system failure, the school has no way to recover the data they thought was secured. 

This is why we have developed our air gapped back up system. 

With Virtue Technologies’ air gapped back up system, we store your backup data in our cloud based storage system as standard, but we also make a second copy which we store in a completely separate location, on an independent network not connected in any way to your school’s network. This “air gap” means that a cyber criminal can’t target your back up, as they won’t be able to see that it even exists. This extra level of security is what makes Virtue Technologies the disaster recovery provider of choice for schools across the country. 

Why choose Virtue Technologies?

Virtue Technologies have extensive experience in the implementation of successful backup and disaster recovery solutions. As we only work in the education sector, our professionals understand your unique requirements, and are able to plan, design and implement the service from end to end, ensuring its success. 

We deliver outstanding customer service and build long lasting relationships with our customers. 

“As a Microsoft Training Academy we need a partner who adapts to the challenges that education presents. Virtue fully live up to this expectation. They provide support on a number of levels. “- Paul Edge, Assistant Head Teacher, Ribblesdale High School

Contact us today to see why you should integrate our Cloud Disaster Recovery solution into your school’s business continuity plan.

Tel: 01695 731233

Fax: 0845 089 3456 

e-mail: enquiries@virtuetechnologies.co.uk 

Web: www.virtuetechnologies.co.uk