Business continuity provider Databarracks has provided a BaaS (Backup-as-a-service) solution for Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR).

GTR is UK’s largest railway company and travels through London, Brighton, Luton, and Gatwick Airport.

The BaaS service of Databarracks supports more than 10,000 users from over 250 locations throughout the UK, giving support to Govia Thameslink Railway to streamline the data protection processes.

The railway franchise’s IT department that looked after approximately 1 million passenger journeys a day before the Covid-19 pandemic, earlier had an amalgamation of two previous incumbents, each with their own data infrastructure, meaning a necessity for consolidation.

With the partnership with Databarracks, Thameslink repaired the IT system by inviting various inherited legacy data backup solutions together and reducing staff members’ strain.

What leaders have to say

“Databarracks have proven themselves as a much-valued partner over a number of years and I view them as an extension of our IT department,” said Gordon Rampling, IT Operations Manager at Govia Thameslink Railway. “We get to stay up-to-date with the best technologies as part of the service. Databarracks evaluates new technologies and migrated us to new backup software when a better option became available.”

“We added more functionality and the ability to protect our Office 365 estate of over 10,000 users. If we had purchased the technology ourselves, it would have been a major project to upgrade,” Rampling added. “With Databarracks, that transition was managed for us in the background without disruption and it actually reduced our costs overall.”

Rampling also added, “Firstly, it was a very scalable model. To implement a similar solution internally would mean a significant outlay just to get started. We would need to invest in software, hardware, and the team at the offset. With Databarracks, we gained access to everything we needed but could start small and scale-up as we needed.”

“Secondly, by working with an MSP, we get a real partner, supplementing the skills of our team. The engineers are experts at what they do. We get to embed that expertise into our out helpdesk,” Rampling adds.

The increase in cyberattacks on national infrastructure, including railway services, has highlighted the significance of backup and recovery to mitigate risk to user data.