Databarracks helps UNICEF UK drive IT improvements

“We closed our Billericay office in order to become more integrated in the way we work”, says Williamson. Moving to one London office has enabled us to save money, improve collaboration, and, importantly, reconsider our overall IT strategy in light of newer procurement models. This was particularly the case with backup, as Billericay also served as our failover site.”

Williamson’s strategic vision for UNICEF UK’s IT services involved minimising capital investment by cutting the number of internally owned systems. Discrete functions are being outsourced to specialist providers with the aim of improving quality and internal efficiencies. “My main priority is to ensure UNICEF UK is not preoccupied with running IT systems”, adds Williamson. “Our job is to support our staff to help the world’s children. If embracing a new technology helps us to do that job better, whether that’s becoming more agile or cost-effective, then it makes sense for us to adopt it.”

Consequently, Databarracks worked alongside existing suppliers under the umbrella of a much larger IT improvement programme. As the backup and disaster recovery provider, Databarracks’ first task was to successfully protect the new environment. Once the new system was set up, technicians recovered all new virtual machines to Databarracks’ secure infrastructure, and presented them back to UNICEF UK via Citrix. Williamson described the process of balancing different suppliers on such a large project:

“We’ve collaborated with a lot of suppliers in the past and Databarracks is one of the easiest to work with. If an issue arose, Databarracks went off and dealt with the problem directly.”

By using Databarracks’ ‘Backup as a Service’, UNICEF UK gained a greater insight into their IT spend with predictable, transparent costs, as well as enhanced levels of support and protection for their mission-critical customer data. However, the new systems have also enabled the organisation to continue developing innovative fundraising strategies, such as the production of rich, media content to promote amongst their donor network. “It’s important that we can proactively demonstrate exactly how our donors’ generous contributions help children all over the world”, adds Williamson
“Video is a really great way to do that, and Databarracks’ Backup as a Service has helped us to expand our digital media function. UNICEF UK does incredibly important work so it gives us all at Databarracks great pride to know that we are helping play a part to make sure that work continues by boosting the IT resilience of the organisation,” says Peter Groucutt, Managing Director at Databarracks.