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Taking control of data management with Double Take
Electronic data storage continues to grow and as such so too does the risk of data being in some way compromised, from a purposeful cyber attack to a natural event like flooding affecting systems. This means having the necessary means for data backup is vital and Double Take Software provides protection against this risk.
In the last 12 months the importance of data protection has been mainstream news on more than one occasion. The loss of data, mostly when left carelessly on trains, underlines a primary problem in the age of technological advancement – where do you store all the data you collect
Losing data that could be required for policing strategy, court cases or other key events, would be disastrous so the key requirement in having data systems that can back up and store information to ensure it is always covered against potential losses. Double-Take Software is a company that supplies data back up and recovery software that is able to offer data replication so that if information is lost from the main hosting site, it can instantly be rerouted to a secondary system.
Ian Masters from Double-Take explains more: “Data transfer can be affected by any number of things – from flood and fires to one off major events like the terrorist bombings of 7/7. As a result it’s important the emergency services have the capability to remote host the data they store, and will be collecting during an incident, in a secondary location that is secure. It can also be used to operate data when the main server has to be taken down for maintenance work, for example. In addition it’s very easy to switch the data storage over so even if the risk hasn’t happened, but potential might – say during a flood – staff can easily move to the remote data system in case anything were to happen.”
The importance of using the software correctly is something that Masters underlines, saying the company suggests specialist IT personnel work to manage the technology, as it requires dedicated knowledge. “Using technology like this requires a good level of professional expertise so we generally recommend that those who use it have a dedicated IT staff to manage it.”
The Ministry of Defence Police
The Double-Take software is used by a wide range of emergency services, including the Ministry of Defence Police. A contact from the MoD Police gave us his view on the role the Double Take software provides. “At MOD Police, Double-Take is used to provide Disaster Recovery for file storage and e-mail facilities. We also use it to replicate data from remote sites to the centre our headquarters in Essex. For our purposes, we have found it to be a reliable and cost effective provider of backup facilities.”
He continues, “There were minimal set up and management overheads on the disaster recovery side, which we liked. In terms of the replication of data from remote sites, we wanted a system that backed up data on a continuous basis, without manual intervention, and Double-Take gives us that. The need for this type of software had been identified for some time, but we were looking for a product that met our cost efficiency criteria too.”
