ANS Group arms school with FalconStor CDP

Integrator installs data protection system to ensure safety of students' coursework

Integrator ANS Group has installed a FalconStor continuous data protector (CDP) system at Bradford Grammar school.

The CDP, from disk-based data protection vendor FalconStor, will provide a disaster recovery (DR)
service for the private school’s IT infrastructure.

Scott Fletcher, chairman of ANS Group, told CRN: “ANS has had a contract with Bradford Grammar
for the past six years; this is another example of how it embraces new technologies with us.”

“The school started with an IBM system that had no real resilience against disasters,” Fletcher claimed.

“Normally a whole system would be ripped out and replaced with new storage, however, ANS re-used the existing hardware. Now, if the school has a big disaster with its IBM system, it has a seamless failover to FalconStor.”

The CDP offers three key options that comprise the FalconStor Continuous Data Replication (CDR), application-aware Snapshot Agents and the FalconStor TimeMark.

These options ensure that a remote disk is an exact copy, which is continually kept up to date, and that active data is protected. It also allows a single file or an entire volume to be instantly recovered.

Fletcher explained that Bradford Grammar also embraced Cisco networking after ANS recently earned its Cisco Silver certification.

Fletcher added that Bradford Grammar can now use its IT infrastructure as a marketing tool.

In a statement, Simon Marriott, IT manager at Bradford Grammar School, said: “Students submit crucial coursework electronically and we must treat it as irreplaceable. In such circumstances, a school’s IT infrastructure is not a luxury, but is as mission critical as it might be in a commercial environment.”