Redstor Supports Growth Of Channel IT Firm Computeam

Small IT services provider Computeam successfully teamed up with cloud backup firm Redstor to grow and expand its business.

North West England-based Computeam was founded in 1998. It focuses on primary schools specifically, offering a wide range of services including IT support, cloud-based services, IT consultancy and training.

Today, 33 staff supply ICT services to over 104 contracted schools and 250 non-contracted schools.

The Business Problem

Technology, including that in schools, has dramatically changed over the past few years and continues to do so.

While schools initially used a small amount of data, consisting of Word documents, images and interactive whiteboard resources, today, they use a lot more.

Many education organisations now use tablets, mobile devices and laptops which has increased the amount of data generated, ultimately meaning storage needs have grown.

After recognising this trend, Computeam set out to develop a solution to the challenge, aiming to become a trusted partner in delivering reliable and suitable data backup solutions to the schools market.

Solving The Problem

In 2010, Computeam decided to approach Redstor to see if a partnership could offer the education sector the online data backup it was in need of.

The two firms then began offering Redstor Backup for Schools Service (RBUSS), a fully automated, online backup and data recovery service intended to simplify the management of backups for schools.

“Redstor were an obvious partner choice due to their pedigree within the data backup market,” claimed Computeam Director Andy Cocking.

“Their focus on education meant they understood the needs of schools from day one,” he added.

According to Computeam Managing Director Owen Napier, his company set out to figure out how schools could leverage the cloud, because they were “late to that bandwagon.”

Redstor stepped in to help the firm with this and began the move away from physical, non-fireproof storage.

The RBUSS solution is able to automatically protect school data across all devices. Data collected is quickly compressed, encrypted and then transferred to Redstor via the school’s Internet connection.

The Results

Napier claimed Redstor was a strong choice for partnership due to its attentiveness and knowledge of what schools need, allowing the firms to offer a service its customers can be 100% confident in.

In four years of working together, Redstor and Computeam have been able to serve 40 primary and secondary schools.

Protected data volumes have been growing consistently, from 0TB in 2010, to 3.5TB in 2012, 5.1TB in 2013 and 8.1TB in 2014.

“Throughout this time the Redstor backup service hasn’t missed a beat,” claimed Cocking.

“As a channel partner, Redstor are a delight to work with, they know the education market like the back of their hand and understand exactly what schools need.

“We knew backup was becoming a critical service, core to schools. With Redstor, we got it right from day one, this instils confidence from schools and allows us to offer additional services,” he added.

Since 2010, Computeam has been able to expand its range of ICT services and Cocking has praised the relationship with Redstor for helping to make this happen.

“Effective backup has provided our foundation for growth. Getting this right has allowed us to build effective relationships and sell additional services,” he claimed.

“When we began working with Redstor, we knew backup was important. Our clients now rely on us to ensure their data is securely backed up and that it complies with the relevant legal requirements.

“This has built client confidence, strengthened [our] reputation in the sector and assisted our strong year-on-year growth,” the director added.

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