Armstrong Watson is a UK top 30 Accountancy firm, specialising in financial and business advice, accountancy, tax, investment, payroll and corporate recovery. It has over 400 staff working across 12 sites, with offices from Leeds to Glasgow.
After suffering from three floods since 2005 at its Carlisle HQ, Armstrong Watson required reliable Disaster Recovery without additional management overhead.
Databarracks set up managed DRaaS for key VMs from Armstrong Watson into Microsoft Azure using Zerto.
Armstrong Watson’s HQ is in Carlisle, which has suffered three major floods since 2005. As such, Disaster Recovery (DR) has always been a major point of concern. Having a DR solution that is resilient, practical and cost-effective is crucial.
Paul Cullen is Armstrong Watson’s IT Infrastructure and Hardware Manager, having worked there since 1995.
“Before Databarracks, we managed the failover from our primary data centre to a secondary site, both with the same data centre provider. All of our eggs were in one basket. In the event of a disaster affecting both, the business would be in serious trouble. We wanted to replicate to outside that setup to diversify our supply-chain and negate that risk.”
A key reason we chose them to look after our DR was the level of service they had already given us.
Databarracks replicates 14TB and key VMs from Armstrong Watson into Microsoft Azure using Zerto.
“We replicate our core servers and Document Management System to Azure. The implementation was well planned and we were up and running quickly.
“During the set up stage, we had weekly catch ups with our dedicated team, so everyone was kept in the loop. There was minimal disruption and we could continue with business as usual. It’s a fairly easy process to failover as well and doesn’t require much manual process from our side.
“Knowing our DR solution is being handled by professionals and replicating somewhere other than our data centre gives us peace of mind. The solution has really taken a burden off the internal IT team.”
Armstrong Watson is looking to grow in the future covering the central area of the UK.
“We felt Databarracks managing our DR by replicating with Zerto into the Azure cloud was the best option.
“Along with getting a resilient DR solution, this managed service has allowed us to dip our toe into the Azure cloud. If that is to be our primary infrastructure going forward, we wanted to see how it operated, but getting our recovery infrastructure off our network was the priority.
“Our headcount has increased by 20% in the last three years – which our infrastructure has had to grow and evolve with alongside. We recently acquired a firm in Glasgow, and looking to do the same in Northern England and Southern Scotland.
“As a business, a lot of our apps are moving to cloud-based functionality, which has a knock on effect of what data we hold in our data centres and the amount of on-premise kit that we use. We continually review our infrastructure and requirements, and It could well be that we move from our own infrastructure to being fully in Azure in the near future. With Databarracks managing our solution, we feel confident that whatever the next steps are, we’re in good hands.
“Before taking on our Disaster Recovery solution, Databarracks were managing our backups. A key reason we chose them to look after our DR was the level of service they had already given us. A lot of it was down to Databarracks giving Armstrong Watson a solution that works for us – but we were also really happy with the service. We trust them to do a good job.”