Press Release 9 September 2011
Disaster Recovery…words that MD’s and business leaders have of late become all too familiar with; Corporate Governance legislation and The King Commission have highlighted the need for DR and Business Continuity Planning & Provisioning as well as the penalties for not having these in place.
But this all comes at a high price, and much like insurance, it’s a cost that has a measure of resistance associated with it because of the low eventuality of a disaster; DR hot sites are the most pricey of these services whether owned or as a outsourced service.
Many companies have resorted to utilizing branch offices for off site data mirroring, and for use during emergencies, but this does not completely solve the need and often these plans fall short of the ideal DR planning scenario.
Enter BSF Mobile DR Services or MDR, launched this past week by Backup Storage Facilities.
“The premise of the MDR is that your DR site comes to you at your time of greatest need, fully configured for your requirements“, says June Welthagen, BSF Group General Manager.
She believes that the MDR is uniquely BSF, “over a 20 year period we have evolved a culture of exceptional service to our clients. We are a niche, but critical part of their DR planning and the MDR extends our niche by providing a cost effective DR site service to all types and sizes of business; larger corporations who need smaller DR sites for branches as well smaller organisations that need a DR facility but don’t want to go the conventional route.
Welthagen is particularly excited by the versatility of the approach to the MDR offering, ” although we we have developed a standard option that has built in fire prevention management & consists of an administrative section, a facilities section (power generation & air conditioning), and data centre, our clients can configure the units themselves to include satellite internet access, VoIP phone systems and solar power generation.”
BSF Group Marketing Manager, Darren Stewien believes providing a complete end-to-end offering is crucial, “We have made sure we have packaged a complete DR solution in the MDR offering; from the service through financing and operating the unit during a disaster.”
The BSF MDR is available either as an outright purchase & self operation or a full service offering which includes; finance, maintenance, unit storage, bandwidth availability, site set up & operation when activated. Client units will be housed at BSF which will provide power & internet access so that clients can update their data or use the site as a mirroring facility, alternatively the client will be able to house and manage the unit themselves.
Also part of the package is a crane, trailer and transport facilities on 24 hours stand by. The option also exists for clients that choose to purchase the unit outright to utilize the storage facilities at BSF.
Stewien concludes. “BSF has the stated brand intent of “Always There”, this extends to all our services whether digital imaging, physical or virtual paper & data storage, and data recovery, but none encapsulate this ideal more than the MDR“.
Article in ITWeb 21 June 2011
BSF is the data security industry’s best kept secret
All good spy stories have secret agents and unmarked vehicles moving encrypted information from one secret location to another. While this may seem like the product of a writer’s overactive imagination, there is a company in South Africa that has been doing exactly that for its customers for more than 25 years. Backup Storage Facilities (BSF) takes enormous pride in keeping its customers’ data protected through its strict security policies.
According to Darren Stewien, BSF’s marketing and PR manager, the company takes security so seriously that it doesn’t even give its physical address out to just anyone. He says that it is because of just how strict the company’s security is that customers trust BSF with their data.
“This intense focus on protective measures extends to our employees, who all undergo police clearances every six months. In addition, any visitor, such as an auditor, that visits us also has to be cleared by the police first. Furthermore, we maintain internal security through weekly training sessions for employees. These drills form part of our ongoing procedures and policies and are a source of pride amongst our staff members,” he says.
“Current legislation indicates thatall large companies need to effectively backup their data. While this is a simple enough task, doing it safely can be trickier. Our Media Storage offering provides for the invulnerable collection, transport and storage of backups made by a customer’s IT manager. We collect the data from the client’s premises in an unmarked vehicle, transporting it in safe canisters and safeguarding it at our own facilities.”
Of course, continues Stewien, BSF also offers online backup facilities for those customers that require it. He says that the company’s Vital File solution works in similar fashion to most storage solutions, backing the client data up securely to two separate protected locations.
“All our storage facilities are designed according to existing standards , so for example our vaults are all maintained at a standard temperature and humidity, while they all have the required levels of fireproofing and so on. Furthermore, our vaults are designed in such a way that should the area they are based in experience a major disaster – a flood, for example – we can quite literally pick them up and move them elsewhere within 24 hours.”
“We are passionate about datasecurity and customer satisfaction, both of which are important to us; our entire delivery philosophy is based around ensuring that the customer is kept happy. In order to provide the highest possible levels of service, we stick to what we do best, which is security of data warehousing, while partnering with other best-in-field organisations to provide clients with the best overall security solution,” he says.
Another key aspect of BSF’s customer service lies in its employees, indicates Stewien. Everyone at the company is focussed on a centralised goal and they are all working towards it together. This, coupled with the company’s regular training sessions (held at the company’s in-house training facility with a full-time trainer), keeps employees motivated and happy, which in turn means they provide better service to the clients.
He says that looking ahead, BSF has already launched a paper storage facility as well as a state of the art digital imaging and data recovery service to ensure that BSF becomes integral to its customers’ disaster recovery strategy.
The company has joined with service partners to deliver an end to end disaster recovery service toits customers, ensuring that their vital information is constantly kept up to date, so that they need never fear any kind of disaster.
“In line with our below-the-radar approach to our services, we are working on a unique disaster recovery and business continuity facility, the details of which are being kept under wraps for now. Suffice it to say this will be an SA first that will enable us to deliver immediate business continuity to a customer in the event of a large scale disaster… so watch this space.”
“Of course, although we place enormous focus on security, we remain an agile and flexible organisation, geared to meet the needs of a wide variety of small and large businesses, across a range of vertical markets. We may not be the biggest secure storage providers in the country, but we don’t believe the hype that says that bigger is better – we believe that better is actually better, and that is exactly what BSF is,” he concludes.