Prêt-a-Manger Brews Up Better Backup

Leading retailer chooses EVault InfoStage online backup software

Emeryville, Calif. — March 14, 2005 — EVault, the leader in secure, online data backup and recovery solutions, announced today that Prêt-a-Manger, a leading coffee house and fresh food emporium in the U.K., has selected its EVault InfoStage® online backup software to help centralize data protection among their 125 UK stores and to provide enhanced business continuity.

The online backup installation, undertaken by systems integrator and consultant, TriSys, has addressed three major data protection concerns: To improve the day-to-day operational control of remote data protection tasks, automate and speed up backup processes and quickly and securely get the backed up data off-site to a centralized data center.

While satisfied with how sales and ePOS data was being backed up, other important data stored at each Prêt outlet was of concern. Prêt wanted to make sure this important data, which included staff information and local supplier details, would be backed up. With this data residing locally, an in-store hardware failure could result in data loss and significantly impacting a store’s ability to function effectively.

“We were concerned that nightly backup windows were being encroached upon by the growing amount of data being stored at our remote sites,” says Mike Hicks, head of IT at Prêt-a-Manger. “Capturing all the data and managing it centrally enabled us to save administration time and react faster to any backup-related problems.”

Once its data backups were centralized and completed within the appointed time windows, Prêt wanted an additional copy of the data off-site away from any potential site disaster at its London headquarters. By deploying EVault InfoStage, TriSys configured a second backup task to run to a second, off-site data center location ensuring enhanced business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.

“EVault InfoStage helped us to leverage our existing infrastructure to get data off-site quickly without an elaborate staging process or paying for an expensive replication solution,” Hicks adds.

“EVault online backup provides Prêt with much faster restore capability than their previous tape-based solution while eliminating the time spent previously on tape management and minimising related administrative errors,” says Ian Homer, sales manager, TriSys.

“For organizations like Prêt - with distributed environments, and few, if any, remote IT resources - EVault InfoStage is an ideal choice because it streamlines and automates the cumbersome, traditional tape-based backup process,” says Phil Evans, EVault director of business development, EMEA. “The simplicity and ease of use belies our highly sophisticated technology.”

About EVault

EVault enables customers to efficiently and reliably safeguard their data through a fully automated, online process. Today, EVault software is the basis for online backup and recovery for thousands of businesses worldwide. The technology has helped perform millions of backups and tens of thousands of successful restorations. For more information, please visit www.evault.com or email info@evault.com.

About Prêt a Manger

Prêt opened in London in 1986. College friends, Sinclair and Julian, made proper sandwiches using natural, preservative-free ingredients. The two of them had woefully little experience in the world of business. They created the sort of food they craved but couldn’t find anywhere else.

Because Prêt is private, it does not face the same pressure to grow as that of a public company. It has developed slowly, one shop at a time. There are about 150 Prêt shops at the moment. Most of them are in the UK. It turns over roughly £150 million a year.

About TriSys Ltd

Founded in January 1991 and with offices in Luton, Stirling, Runcorn and Poole, TriSys has grown to become one of the UK's most respected, independent and dedicated suppliers of data management solutions. TriSys has successfully integrated data management, protection, availability, storage and archiving solutions into many blue-chip companies throughout the UK. For more information, visit www.trisys.co.uk.

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