Redstor invites you to join us on stand 43 at The Academies Show 2012 on the 16th of May at Olympia in London. The event is the only FREE TO ATTEND event of its kind for headteachers, finance directors and bursars, governors, Local Authority education leaders or anyone else with a serious professional interest in the Academies Programme.

As of  the 1st of April 2012 there are 1776 academies open in England. This number continues to grow, reshaping the UK education landscape as a result. Whether you are considering conversion, are in the process of converting or are actively involved in an established Academy, make sure that you don’t miss this essential day. This year, the event will feature:

• Latest information directly from senior figures who set and implement the national education agenda
• Best practice advice on all aspects of converting and managing successful Academies, supported by real-life examples
• Discussions on key issues for Sponsored Academies and Sponsors, including funding and collaboration
• Experts on hand to explain complex legal, HR and property requirements
• Demonstrations of services and products designed to tangibly improve teaching, learning and school administration
• and more…

Redstor will be showcasing market-leading cloud services that safeguard and protect critical information and assets, whilst improving IT efficiency. Our services include; Capita’s approved secure online backup for SIMS; CentraStage – remote device management/support tool; and E-Safety, safeguarding children in schools. In total our services are used by over 15,000 schools and academies.

If you’re a school, academy, Local Authority or service provider, stop by our stand as we discuss the changing legal landscape, challenges of legal compliance and how to meet legal requirements. We’ll also demonstrate how we improve efficiencies, IT productivity and security, whilst reducing costs and downtime.

Please click here for further information. The list of exhibitors is here.

To register your place at The Academies Show, please e-mail Redstor.

Redstor will once again be exhibiting at the Cloud Computing World Forum this year. The event, held on the 12th and 13th of June at Earls Court in London, is Europe’s biggest cloud computing event with over 4,000 senior IT decision-makers from around the globe expected to attend over the course of the 2 days.

Last year, the event proved to be a very succesful outing for Redstor. It provided a great opportunity to network with clients, partners and suppliers alike and resulted in a number of opportunities for Redstor, our partners and our clients.

This year, the event will feature 150 seminars across 8 theatres spanning a wide range of topics under the broad headings of SaaS, Security, Big  Data, PaaS,  Mobile, Public Sector, Virtualization, Communications,  Social, CRM and  more. Exhibiting at the event will be over 120 global exhibitors (the full list is available here).

Attendance through Redstor is free and meetings can be arranged in advance to ensure you don’t have to wait to meet with one of our representatives. To register, please click here and a representative will be in touch to arrange a suitable meeting time. Redstor will be on stand 2140. The floorplan for the event can be viewed here.

If you’re unsure whether the event would be relevant to you, why not give us a call to discuss it in more detail.

Cloud Backup and Storage provider Redstor, will be exhibiting at the Cloud Expo Europe Show at London’s Olympia between the 25^th and 26^th of January.

Redstor will be focusing on it’s Cloud Tiering Appliance which enables data to be moved from high-cost primary Network Attached Storage (NAS) environments to the Redstor Cloud.

The Cloud Tiering Service provides fully automated, policy-based file movement, enabling organisations to meet data growth challenges by improving capacity utilisation of high-cost primary storage, reducing the volume of data to be backed up and protected.

This service is based on and powered by EMC’s Atmos Storage Platform.

Redstor will be exhibiting with their data centre infrastructure partner, Equinix, on stand 331.

We look forward to meeting with you there.

One of Redstor’s partners, Star, have recently formed the UK Cloud Alliance compromising of a group of 15 providers of cloud services ranging from CRM to Online Backup. The process of choosing the service providers to underpin the UK Cloud Alliance has been a rigorous process, with the end result being that organisations from SMB’s to Enterprises now have access to best of breed cloud services and enjoying the benefits of only having one supplier to manage rather than several different suppliers.

Redstor have been delivering cloud services since 2004 and have a backup platform which protects >1PB of data from c.18,000 end user customers. Redstor have a partner-enabled platform from which service providers such as Star can leverage and make best use of our cloud services such as Online Backup or Cloud Storage.

What is the UK Cloud Alliance and what can they provide for me?
The Alliance has been designed to help medium sized UK businesses quickly and conveniently secure local specialist support to help solve their most pressing operational challenges.

By pooling the talents and resources of an exclusive, carefully selected collective of service providers, businesses have instant access to expertise to help their business transformation needs covering IT, communications, applications, data and processes. Moreover, they’ll secure financial and operational benefits that in-house alternatives and outsourcing simply can’t match.

Things perspective buyers want to know?

When is the right time to migrate to the Cloud? How will it impact operations and what is the true cost? There are many questions everyone has about this new form of technology but the main answer is that Cloud computing is here to stay and will continue to form a fundamental shift in the traditional IT adoption models.

Businesses want to pinpoint the latest and most appropriate technology services which not only boost efficiency but also drive their business forward. Services from the UK Cloud Alliance are available for a fixed monthly fee.   So you’ll be able to budget and plan, secure in the knowledge there will be no nasty billing surprises.

Cloud Alliance tell customers how important it is when dealing with a service provider, to feel completely confident that they really understand business needs and connect with your way of thinking. To many people, the cloud is often portrayed as a technical system change but it is much more than that and can change the way a business operates.

If you’re looking for a best of breed Online Backup partner, then you can read more here or call our Reading office on 0118 951 5200.

Author: Emma Keast

Blog Focus:            Cloud data Redstor Online Backup

Ever wondered what it would take to control how a pupil behaves in a classroom without saying a word? Well now you can find out..

Redstor E-Safety is a new service which enables schools to identify issues which strengthen e-safety practice and better educate staff, parents and pupils about safety online.

‘A service combining the best e-safety training and advice for school staff with the technical confidence offered by computer monitoring to improve the e-safety outcomes and behaviour of pupils’.

It also helps to prevent major issues affecting the lives of young people today such as cyber bullying and incorrect internet use.  E-Safety teaches primary pupils how to stay safe when using the internet and other digital technologies. Issues can range from access to inappropriate sites due to misspelling, accidental viewing of pornography and illegal images.

Schools have a responsibility to protect students online and ensure pupils use ICT and the internet safely as part of their duty of care. With new technologies used from age 5, this must begin as soon as children start school. Ofsted recommends that schools provide pupils with more internet access to allow children the chance to assess risks and learn how to keep themselves safe.

What are the educational benefits?

• Monitoring online and offline use. Detects and records examples of harmful behaviour and content within emails, computer programs, websites, social networking sites, blogs, VLEs and instant messages.

• Supports schools’ legal duty of care - Alerts staff to swearing, hurtful comments, online bullying, harmful or worrying websites and other online safeguarding concerns.

• Promotes safer behaviour - Encourages children to adopt safer habits and teaches them how to stay safe online in real situations.

• Meets Ofsted recommendations - Allows pupils to use new technologies responsibly while ensuring any e-safety issues are captured.

Author: Emma Keast

Blog Focus Student online Protection, e-safety, E-safety Services

For more information see: http://www.redstor.com/esafety.html

As a general rule, its thoroughly important to always back up your data onto your server at all times to protect your information from getting lost. This is another reason as to why having cloud storage is so beneficial. It does all the hard work for you.

For example, if you are a company who holds information on behalf of other companies – eg, you are hosting websites for clients and or have a social media site containing information posted by its users. Those people as your clients depend on you to keep their information safe. If anything were to go wrong then you would be satisfied in knowing that you have the cloud backing up your lost data.

It’s easily accessible and you don’t have to worry about changing your local storage device if you or your company moves location. Cloud backups cost little but you can save a lot when backing your server up to the cloud.

Having your backups ready also helps you in making your data migration easier. If you plan to move your data from old to a new server at the same location but on a different server, the online backup will save you both time and money.

Most web hosting providers will say that their dedicated servers are fully secured. You should be prepared for such instances as you will never know what will happen. This is why having your server backed onto the cloud is so beneficial because you could literally re-connect to the internet on another pc and pick up where you left off.

Author Emma Keast

For more information see: http://www.redstor.com/onlinebackup.htm

Blogs focus:                          Online Backup Cloud Storage Data Backup

Cloud Storage V.s. Local Storage?

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that all of your work was backed up and secure without you having to worry about your local storage device being tampered with?  Cloud Storage has been designed for this exact reason, to protect your online back up.  Any small, medium or large businesses can really benefit from having it.

What are the pros? There are many pros to using this form of software, as you can access it from any location, at anytime and anywhere.

Unlike local storage, there is no physical location, as a result of this there is less chance of losing your data as Cloud Storage cannot physically be tampered with. All you need to access the cloud is an internet connection. Having this form of data back up is both cheaper and convenient for businesses and consumers.

One of the most appealing features of this product is that it relieves you from the task of upgrading constantly. Capacity is available on-demand and as required, plus having that higher level of security is always an advantage.

Having secure cloud storage is also of great benefit to IT Professionals as it frees up their time within the office, it gives them the freedom to be able to access data anytime, anywhere.

Should a natural disaster occur, like a fire for instance, the businesses who were running their data backups, e-mails and any other software, onsite through their servers would lose everything and off site backups would still not be instantaneous to recover.  However the businesses who were running off the cloud would need to just use a different computer which had an internet connection and they would be immediately up and running as if nothing had happened.

Cloud Storage is not only the smart way to store but it can prove to be incredibly cost effective as well.

Author Emma Keast                                                                                                   30^th June 2011

For more information see:  http://www.redstor.com/onlinebackup.htm

Blogs focus:          Cloud Storage                  Secure Cloud Storage      Data Backup            Online Backup