Diocese of Westminster Opts for Online Backup Solution From Thinking SAFE

Conscious that its data was at risk, the Diocese of Westminster has opted for Thinking SAFE’s RecoveryShield Disaster Recovery and backup solution supplied by Paralogic Network Solutions.

Westminster, which is the mother diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, is one of the smallest dioceses in terms of geographical area, but the largest in terms of Catholic population and priests. Based in Victoria, London, the head office incorporates an administration centre for the 219 parishes and carries ultimate responsibility for the clergy, churches, parish buildings and a number of satellite offices.

Diocese of Westminster

ICT Manager Rod de Silva joined the organisation in 2003 to take control of a rapidly expanding network. Working closely with their external support company Paralogic Network Solutions, de Silva created a robust platform based on Microsoft and HP technology that provides a standardised environment across the Diocese.

Spread over three buildings, the head office hosts some 120 staff. A further three remote offices, together with the parishes, attach to the network via DSL links bringing the total number of users to over 1000.

“In an organisation of this size, data backup is always an issue,” explains de Silva. “Although we were backing up to tape every night with Backup Exec, I was concerned about the integrity of the data on the tapes. On one occasion it took us half a day to restore a particular file from tape, only to find that the file was corrupted. It was a pretty gut wrenching moment!” “Previously we were using three tape drives to manage the backup process. Although we considered buying an auto-changer, this would still require daily intervention and we would still have to buy and manage numerous sets of tapes. Also, the recent terrorist attacks in London had raised questions about our disaster recovery plans and I was conscious that our data was at risk.”

Following a successful trial at one of the satellite offices, de Silva opted for the RecoveryShield on-line backup solution from software supplier Thinking SAFE. Paralogic installed a backup server in the main building to secure data from the various servers on the network on a daily basis. This data is stored in its de-duplicated, compressed and encrypted form before it’s replicated to a second server located in a different building. The first store provides rapid local recovery and the remote store automatically provides a disaster recovery position using a 2Mb SDSL circuit for the link.

“This is a completely automated system so we no longer have to worry about the backup,” de Silva continues, “and it frees up valuable resource to support the other network activity. We have restored important files on a few occasions now and the system has worked perfectly.”

Looking to the future, the Diocese of Westminster plans to extend the backup system to other Diocesan offices, mobile laptop users and the parish administrators. Other than physical disk space, there is no limit to the amount of data that may be stored.

Phil Gamble, Sales Director at Paralogic Network Solutions comments: “Our ability to satisfy our clients’ needs is demonstrated by the long term relationships we establish and the innovative solutions we bring to our market.  The solution we have provided for the Diocese of Westminster is another testament to this.”