Red Alert Partners with DataGr8 and AvePoint for Cost-Effective, User-Friendly, and Reliable Backup and Recovery Service
Success Highlights
Full-service, worry-free backup and recovery for M365
Reduced management burden with cloud-based solution
Storage cost savings and scalability with data growth
Safeguard against ransomware attacks
Customer Location East London, South Africa
Industry Facilities Services
Platform Microsoft 365
Red Alert Service Solutions is a national service driven company providing trusted, non-core services to the outsourcing market. They offer a comprehensive suite of services, which includes Cleaning, Guarding, Hygiene, Alarms, Electronic Security, Facilities Management and more, with multiple offices located in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Gauteng, Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal provinces of South Africa.
Critical Needs
- Cloud-based backup solution for Microsoft 365
- Prevention of accidental or malicious data loss
- Cost-effective and value-driven approach
- Easy-to-configure and user-friendly solution
The Challenge
Today’s digital landscape is marked by a significant increase in cyber-related breaches and ransomware attacks, and Red Alert recognized the importance of safeguarding its data to ensure the sustainability and continuity of its business operations. It sought a new backup solution to seamlessly protect its Microsoft 365 cloud services.
Sven Larsen, ICT Manager from Red Alert, explains, "Our foremost requirement, as I'm sure with many businesses in South Africa trying to survive within our challenging economic landscape, was striking a balance between cost and value. Secondly, we wanted a solution that was easy to manage and had additional features to minimize administrative burden."
Red Alert was interested in exploring a cloud-based backup option instead of the traditional self-hosted backup. Sven says, "The primary appeal of a cloud-based backup solution lay in its ability to eliminate the necessity of acquiring and managing additional on-prem hardware, along with the associated expenses of additional internet bandwidth requirements."
The proof is in the pudding - we're so confident we'll be able to restore data using Cloud Backup, we do it every month.
Service Delivery Manager, DataGr8
The AvePoint Solution
After considering their requirements, DataGr8, Red Alert's technology and services provider, recommended AvePoint Cloud Backup to meet their data protection needs. Cloud Backup is a 100% SaaS solution that provides automated, comprehensive backup and restore services, with unlimited built-in storage and four daily backups to ensure that clients have frequent and up-to-date backups of their data.
DataGr8 uses Cloud Backup with many of their clients and is confident in its affordability, user-friendliness, and functionality. Louis Slump, Service Delivery Manager at DataGr8, says, “We’ve investigated other vendors, but they are often too expensive, complex, or limited in functionality. Cloud Backup stands out as both cost-effective and user-friendly for both us and our customers; plus, AvePoint doesn't nickel and dime you by charging you for add-ons or changes.”
Red Alert agrees with DataGr8’s assessment, stating, “While we typically find SaaS offerings to far surpass the costs of locally self-hosted services, we were pleasantly surprised by the affordability of this particular solution.”
Beyond cost, Cloud Backup is also easy to implement and manage; Louis jokes: “Our team can do it with their eyes closed.” Sven adds, “Adopting a cloud backup solution has significantly reduced our concerns about infrastructure availability, maintenance, and administration.”
One of Cloud Backup's biggest selling points was the option for self-service restores, especially as most of Red Alert’s data recoveries are the result of simple user errors. With Cloud Backup’s Ava chatbot, Red Alert can perform their own data restores, making the backup and recovery process convenient and fast, minimizing downtime.
The self-service recovery process is so easy, DataGr8 even tests the system monthly by deleting data and choosing one staff member to restore it. As Louis notes, "The proof is in the pudding - we're so confident we'll be able to restore data using Cloud Backup, we do it every month.”
Cloud Backup also provides ransomware detection capabilities to help detect unusual activity and provides detailed analyses to help quickly investigate and flag potential areas of concern. This, paired with Cloud Backup's detailed reporting capabilities, allows DataGr8 teams to quickly and efficiently address any issues that may arise while also building out regular performance reports to assure their customers their backup is working as it should.
With Cloud Backup in place, Red Alert gained a reliable and efficient backup solution that instills confidence in their data security. They no longer need to worry about data loss; they know their data is protected and easily retrievable through efficient, seamless restores.
The Road Ahead
Louis says, “A lot of our customers have a false sense of security about the cloud. But once they understand the limitations of cloud providers’ coverage, they realize any data in the cloud needs to be backed up.”
This makes Cloud Backup a valuable addition to not only their existing customers data but also attracts new customers regularly. “I just got an order from a new customer today!" notes Louis. “It’s an insurance plan that gives our customers a warm and fuzzy feeling to know their emails, OneDrive content, chats - all their critical workloads - are protected. It's one less thing to keep you up at night."
Overall, Red Alert is very satisfied with their experience working with DataGr8 and AvePoint. Sven says, "Collaborating with experts in their respective fields empowers us to concentrate on our core business while attaining optimal outcomes, leveraging their specialized knowledge and resources. Working with DataGr8 has simply been a breath of fresh air - a professional team and a pleasure to work with."
