London colleges learn to back up

London colleges and universities have clubbed together to gain affordable access to a remote managed backup service in order to protect valuable data and free up IT staff resources.

London Metropolitan Network (LMN) has partnered with managed service provider InTechnology to offer its members access to secure, automated online backup at discounted rates.

The non-profit organisation, owned by its members, links more than 100 higher and further education institutions across the capital to the internet and to the broadband academic network Janet.

InTechnology's VBAK service was launched for LMN this week following a successful pilot with the London Business School and Birkbeck College.

The institutions' data is automatically encrypted and sent securely to InTechnology's remote data centre in Harrogate, where it is managed. In the event of any systems failure, the data can be restored rapidly.

LMN began looking to introduce a remote backup service after a survey of members in 2002 highlighted huge demand.

Mahmood Javaid, LMN's business development manager, said: "It turned out to be our members' number one requirement. Universities are all about knowledge, and that knowledge is increasingly being stored in digital form. It is their core asset and they have to ensure it is safe and secure."

LMN selected InTechnology because the company was a good cultural fit, with plenty of experience working alongside public sector and non-profit organisations.

And with InTechnology willing to work in partnership with LMN the service can be offered at significantly lower-than-usual rates.

"Normally when InTechnology offers this service, customers have to install a dedicated telecoms line," said Javaid.

"With this partnership, though, our members can use the line they've already got into the LMN network. That immediately knocks a third off the usual price. And as InTechnology's partner we also receive a percentage of any revenue they make, 80 per cent of which we pass back to the institutions as an additional discount."

Because the VBAK service is fully automatic it also frees up members' IT staff to focus more proactively on activities central to their academic remit, such as e-learning development, he added.