Cloud Hosting & Replication

In essence it is the delivery of hosted IT services, typically over the internet, where a business ‘consumes’ the services it needs, as and when they are needed. A company doesn’t need to invest heavily in hardware and software to get the IT services that its success and growth depend upon. Castle provides a Private Cloud Service, which means that you know where your data is stored and can be secure in the knowledge of the many measures that are in place to protect it.

Video | Managing Director Alan Quinn, gives an overview of Castle’s Cloud Hosting & Replication.

DataGuard – Data Replication (Backup) & Verification

  • Complete application/server environment images replicated to Data Centre hourly using Castle’s DataGuard Appliance, subject to Castle’s Replication Readiness Assessment
  • Replicating incremental changes speeds up the backup/replication process
  • Available for all Windows servers and Castle Applications including SunSystems, MS Dynamics, Pegasus and Exchequer
  • Verification process included to validate integrity of application backup
  • Recovery data is provided on Castle’s DataGuard Appliance, and if necessary, also on a loan server or hosted access to data from Castle’s data centre
  • Castle’s Replication Readiness Assessment process collates all the required details in advance

The DataGuard service provides peace of mind with:

Automated Replication – Taking automatic backups of your server or data either nightly or hourly (subject to Castle’s Replication Readiness Assessment) to one of Castle’s secure data centre facilities.
Corruption Detection – When an Exchange server is protected by DataGuard, a mount ability check is performed on all Exchange databases after every incremental snapshot. DataGuard also performs an off‐host nightly attach to all the databases being protected on a SQL server. This process automatically validates the backups for application corruption eliminating failed recoveries.
Continous High Availability – The standby features of DataGuard will allow Castle to deliver continuous high availability to a virtual infrastructure on an incremental approach which will keep the Recovery Point and Recovery Time to a minimum. This includes the ability to create a standby virtual machine by storing and automatically updating the snapshot on the SAN in an ESX format every 15 minutes!

Castle can retain the appropriate IT infrastructure at our Data Centre that can be made available to your organisation via remote access to invoke your disaster recovery plan and enable you to be operational within hours.

Alternatively, data could be delivered back to you on a hard drive for use on other hardware and / or Castle could deliver data and systems on a replacement loan server as an additional service.

The invocation options are agreed with the customer as part of the Hosting Readiness Assessment process prior to go-live with DataGuard.

Following a consultation process, Castle will provide a solution and price to accommodate your Business Continuity plan prior to going live. This will include any PC’s and other peripherals, if required.

The Key Service and Support Benefits

  1. Nightly or hourly (subject to Castle’s Replication Readiness Assessment) off-site back-up of application data or server to Castle’s Data Centre
  2. Validation a successful back-up has been completed
  3. Periodic verification of your application or server data
  4. It forms part of your Business Continuity Planning, thereby reducing insurance premiums, providing:
    • Peace of mind that if something happened to your live system, Castle would be able to provide a copy of your verified application database for recovery*.
    • Significantly reducing the risk of losing valuable data
    • Good governance

*Castle will agree in detail what server, data and databases will be backed-up.

Case Study

After a break in at their HQ in Glasgow, Thomas Taylor Bowls asked the technical services team at Castle to develop a disaster recovery solution that would ensure that the business operated with robust business continuity arrangements. Read the case study.

Castle Cloud Computing – Hosting

  • Castle can host literally any application at our Data Centre
  • Castle’s Hosting Readiness Assessment process collates all the required details in advance

Is it easy to move from a traditional on-premise IT infrastructure to Castle’s Cloud computing environment?

After undergoing Castle’s Cloud Computing Hosting Readiness Assessment, to determine the suitability of your infrastructure to operate in a hosted environment, Castle can transfer all of your computing needs to our Data Centre in a timely manner with minimum, if any, downtime.

Castle has both well trained application and technical resources to help make the switch painlessly, whether that is a complete move to Cloud Computing or a hybrid between on-premise and cloud, depending on your business objectives. Castle’s Cloud Computing Readiness Assessment provides all of the required information in advance of planning a transfer to Cloud computing.

How much does it cost?

The cost will depend on the range and scale of services required. Every Castle Cloud solution proposed to a customer will be specific to their needs and take into account the number of users requiring access to the applications, the volume of data involved, the amount of bandwidth required and other factors. Castle has a unique Cloud Computing Readiness Assessment process we complete for each customer prior to confirming a suitable solution, which is based on facts rather than assumptions. Thereafter, Castle will quote a fixed monthly fee based on a scoped solution that includes all technical and application support, which ensures an organisation pays for what it uses, and no more.

What Business Continuity plans or processes are in place?

One of the main benefits of utilising a Castle Cloud solution is the inherent business continuity capability built in to our solutions, such as instant failover if a physical server fails and having no single point of failure built in to our infrastructure. In addition, both data centre facilities offer unprecedented business continuity facilities to ensure maximum uptime, including smooth power supply, backup power generators, key card security entrance, internal and external CCTV, multiple communications connections with leading communication providers, resilient cooling equipment, high spec fire retardant capability, etc.

All of our customers’ systems are replicated either nightly or hourly (subject to agreement and the results of the Readiness Assessment) to our secondary data centre to ensure that if a catastrophic incident happened at our production data centre, a full system copy would be operational within hours from our secondary data centre. All of our Cloud solutions offer secure remote access to the applications, which can be accessed from any location with an internet connection.

Case Study

We were able to demonstrate to QAS COPAK that an outsourced partnership approach would deliver best value, while at the same time achieving all of their business needs. They can have absolute peace of mind that their systems are secure and can be recovered in minutes rather than days, or even weeks, in the event of a disaster of virtually any kind. Read the case study.

Further Information

To find out more about these and other Virtualisation products & services, please call Castle and ask for our Technical Sales team on 0845 230 1314. Alternatively you can email us your questions to info@castle-cs.com