Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council is rolling out a region-wide electronic backup system to secure pupil and staff data across 80 primary, secondary and special schools.
The automated offsite backup systems are already in place across all primary and special schools in the region as well as 10 secondary schools, replacing current onsite tape backups that each school creates individually.
And the remaining four secondary schools in the region will make the switch over to the new service by October 2008.
Andrea Warburton, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council schools IT support team manager said: "This is the first time we have implemented a central backup strategy and the benefits to both the borough council and schools are extremely reassuring."
The Connected Backup for PC and Server system, provided by Iron Mountain Digital, is managed centrally, ensuring data is protected should local backups fail or be damaged.
This also allows staff to automate the creation of regular backups and concentrate on more classroom and lesson preparation time. And the system allows the schools' IT technicians to manage their individual school's own backups as well.
"The solution will ensure that all data generated by each school is protected and stored securely at an offsite location leaving teachers and education staff more time to concentrate on classroom priorities," added Warburton.
