Distributor and retailer of elite-performance road cycling and mountain biking products found its backup solution was diverting the IT team’s time away from helping to grow the business
Bristol-based Saddleback was therefore keen to streamline its data backup technology to protect company data from disasters and cybercriminals, improve efficiency and eliminate any unnecessary downtime.
Established in 2004, Saddleback is a multi-million-pound company with 53 employees in the UK. It boasts a portfolio of the world’s leading road cycling and mountain biking brands, and is the UK’s official source of 3T, Castelli, Chris King, ENVE, HJC, Intense, Moots Cycles, Peaty’s, PUSH, Sidi, Silca, Sportful, Stages, Troy Lee Designs and Wolf Tooth.
Too much admin effort
Despite the company’s success, its backup solution was diverting the IT team’s time away from helping to grow the business. Saddleback’s IT & Operations Manager John Wager explained: “How we addressed our backup concerns was certainly counterproductive. The previous solution was managed within four different consoles and required a great deal of admin effort on a daily basis, which hindered our operations.”
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When looking for a new backup solution, Saddleback turned to its Kidderminster-based technology partner of seven years, OGL Computer. The managed services provider recommended and implemented Datto. A fully managed backup and recovery solution, Datto has already proven itself by not only protecting Saddleback when an entire test server failed to boot after an upgrade went wrong, but also against a malware incident. Saddleback was able to restore all data from a previous point prior to the cyber-attack, quickly and efficiently so that business continued uninterrupted.
Hourly back up and storage
The Datto backup solution is highly scalable for companies like Saddleback that are experiencing rapid data growth. The solution consists of one device located in Saddleback’s UK headquarters that backs up all the business’ data hourly during working hours. A full back up of the device is then stored in Datto’s UK data centre every evening.
With the new technology in place, Saddleback’s IT team can now focus on other tasks such as international e-commerce expansion and supporting employees working from home.
John continued: “Since we’ve had Datto installed, it’s allowed us to bring all our elements together into a single console. The entire operation can now be backed up or restored in one place, which also means I can create more restore points as there’s no crossover time to worry about between solutions, allowing me to pinpoint exactly where I can restore our data. It also gives us greater clarity on our backed-up data than our previous recovery solution. Having an all-in-one platform has really helped minimise our downtime and keeps our operations flowing smoothly.”
Robust IT foundation
Using OGL Computer’s technology solutions, Saddleback is aiming for continued success and growth.
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John explains: “It’s essential for our continued success to back up our data, but that should be the norm, regardless of the industry. Our IT and data may not be the most exciting part of the business but it’s the foundation on which we all work. Our accounts, merchandising, warehouse, brand experts and creative departments all rely on our IT and data, and to lose that would be unthinkable. A robust backup solution should be paramount for every business.”
Peace of mind
OGL Computer’s Steve Bennett, Enterprise Solutions Architect, concluded: “Saddleback needed a robust and proven backup and recovery solution for a large, and soon-to-be growing volume of data. OGL Computer has implemented Datto to give them peace of mind and enable continued success. In addition to our backup solution covering all of Saddleback’s assets, if the worst was to happen and a disaster occurred at Saddleback’s offices, we can either power up their server onto their local device, or simply power up the server in the Datto data centre.”
