SITS boosts recovery times at NHS Trust
Newcastle-based VAR bags healthcare contract
Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust has enlisted virtualisation VAR SITS Group to overhaul its virtual business continuity strategy.
The agreement will see the Newcastle-based VAR provide virtual disaster recovery services, based on Veeam's Backup and Replication, for 2,500 users at three sites.
The product will protect the data stored on the trust's 80 virtual servers, which underpin its accident and emergency and pathology departments.
Speaking to ChannelWeb, Phil Cambers, managing director of SITS Group, said the deal had taken the firm three months to clinch.
"Working in the public sector usually means there are around 80 million levels of bureaucracy to get through, but three months is a quick turnaround for this kind of deal," he said.
He attributes this to Veeam's help during proof of concept, and the fact that more than 60 per cent of the trust's servers had already been virtualised.
"The trust had already put in the groundwork on the virtualisation side, which means this was a light-touch, ecosystem sale," he explained.
"The support given to us by Veeam also gave our proposal a lot more weight."