Interm IT Case Study

Mark Whitman, senior manager at Interm IT, revealed that the company use InstantData - Redstor’s unique, prioritised recovery feature – to ensure staff...

Interm IT keeps school working after ransomware attack

Thanks to InstantData

Streamed on-demand recovery

Interm IT is an exclusively educational IT support company, supporting schools of all levels from infants to the sixth form in the south-east of England. Interm IT’s managed service helps schools that want reliable technology to support their educational environment, by providing dedicated consultants, an in-house support desk and cloud-based monitoring tools.

Interm IT, an educational support company covering the south of England, came to the rescue when one of its 200 schools suffered a ransomware attack.

Mark Whitman, senior manager at Interm IT, revealed that the company use InstantData - Redstor’s unique, prioritised recovery feature – to ensure staff are able to carry on working as normal in the event of an issue.

He said: “We had a ransomware incident at one of our sites where a malicious email was received containing an attachment, which then went on to encrypt a number of key folders in a school.

It was essential to get the folders restored as soon as possible.

Mark Whitman, senior manager at Interm IT

InstantData provides streamed, on-demand access to all data - whether it is stored onsite, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment.

This gives everyone access to what they need when they need it, from backups and archives, making downtime a thing of the past.

Mark said: “We accessed the Redstor console, selected the backup from the previous night and restored the data within 30 minutes.

"The school was up and running without the staff even noticing.”

Interm IT assigns a specific technician to each school for a set number of hours every week to establish how best to provide support and plan for the future.

How long would it take you to recover from a ransomware attack?

Minutes
Hours
Days

However, the school affected by the ransomware attack was not required to wait for a technician to visit.

Mark said: “The schools we serve span a wide geographical area. Having access to a console to perform remote restorations saves a lot of time, avoids the need for us to travel long distances – and keeps our customers happy because they are not kept waiting.”

Redstor’s cloud-management console allows us to perform remote backups and restorations without needing to attend site.

Mark Whitman, senior manager at Interm IT

Challenges, solution and key benefits

Challenges

Minimising downtime
Requirement to restore data at any time to up to 200 schools
Finding a data management provider with guaranteed expert support
Capability to onboard new schools quickly, securely and effectively

Solution

End downtime with streamed, on-demand access to all data – wherever it’s stored
Cloud-management console to perform remote restores
Data management provider that is both the technology provider and infrastructure owner, drawing on 20 years’ knowledge and experience within the storage and backup industry
Installation within 15 minutes, providing cost-effective, secure offsite backup and guaranteed security with data encrypted at source

Key Benefits

Files restored in minutes, and staff able to continue working unaware of any issue
Capability to perform restores without attending site or having to keep school waiting
24/7 access to a UK-based support team that will assist with set-up, normal service operation, and restore requests or DR invocation.
Seamless implementation of backups in new schools, delivering exceptional time to value and complete peace of mind

Expert support

Redstor’s clients have 24/7 access to a UK-based support team that draws on 20 years’ knowledge and experience within the storage and backup industry.

Assistance is available while the service is being set up, during normal service operation, and in the event of restore requests or DR invocation.
Mark said: “One of the main benefits that we have seen over the years working with Redstor is their exceptional support team and a personal account manager that we can liaise with directly. It allows the implementation of backups in new schools to be seamless and effortless.”

Deploy in minutes

Redstor can be deployed and configured in 15 minutes, delivering exceptional time to value.

Built to scale for organisations of all sizes, Redstor’s software-only solution, requires no additional on-prem infrastructure.

As a fully automated service that simplifies data management, Redstor provides reports, detailing backup success and failure, enabling true management by exception.

Mark said: “The installation is very streamlined. You are provided with simple installers to get the system set up and running within minutes."

How happy are you with the support you receive?

Delighted
It could be better
Very unhappy

We are able to monitor backups throughout all of our schools through a management console, and can easily monitor successes and failures and address them immediately.

Mark Whitman, senior manager at Interm IT

Fully secure

Rapid recovery for peace of mind

With Redstor’s ISO-certified disaster recovery solution, Interm IT have the reassurance that their customers’ data is secure.

Richard Spragg, managing director of Interm IT, said: “I know that if Redstor is installed on a school - should the worst happen and we need to do a disaster recovery or just restore a file - it works. We will be able to retrieve the data quickly and effectively each time.

Knowing that the schools’ data is safe means I can sleep at night.

Richard Spragg, managing director of Interm IT

Feedback drives development

Does the feedback you provide lead to a more positive outcome

Always
Often
Hardly ever
Never

Redstor is both the technology vendor and infrastructure owner. All customer feedback directly influences software development.

Richard said: “With Redstor you get a complete solution and a community where customers get input into the development of the product. Ultimately that makes the partnership with Redstor much stronger."

Input from the community has enabled Redstor to develop their product into something that is a lot more powerful.

Richard Spragg, managing director of Interm IT

Testing has never been easier

Redstor makes testing easy by presenting backed-up systems and data for temporary access as a virtual drive and for permanent recovery to a destination of choice.

Mark said: “Every couple of weeks when our technicians visit sites, they are required to perform a test restoration of data.

"This is very straightforward and simple through the Redstor console. It’s literally a case of highlighting a folder, specifying a restoration destination and completing it in a few minutes.”

We have partnered with Redstor for six years . That partnership has been absolutely brilliant and, from our customers’ point of view, I can hand on heart tell them that their data is safe with Redstor.