Castlerock: On the hunt for online data storage
We were recently contacted by Castlerock, a leading provider of managed ICT services in South Africa for over a decade. They advised us that they have a client, an insurance company, that was in need of cloud storage in South Africa and had specific needs that our service had to meet.
Castlerock advise that they were conducting a comprehensive search for a
Reliable local storage service provider that was both quick and POPI Act (Protection of Personal Information Act) compliant.
They also needed the storage service provider to work with their existing in-house storage and be S3 API compatible.
We at Z1 Storage are one of the few data storage service providers that guarantee the location of your data storage, stored within South Africa exclusively on the chosen storage region.
Our market research indicated that our prospective customers needed a backup service that was compatible. Identifying the S3 API as a broad fit, we where confident of our compatibility with most backup systems.
Z1 Storage works with thousands of devices and data services. Trusted SAN, NAS and OS's all connect seamlessly with our online storage. We welcome all trials of our enterprise-grade data cloud service.
Setup in-house storage or use the cloud?
Our client Castlerock had the capability and capacity to setup a storage node for their client within their own data center, however it was going to be expensive for their client. Castlerock's focus is on customer longevity, building honest and caring relationships with their clients is always the first focus in all interactions.
It was in their clients best interest, that they find a way to avoid exorbitant upfront expense for their client. Allowing them to use free cash within their business, for business operations. It was decided that cloud storage would be the best alternative.
Because Z1 Storage is a local service provider with data centers in Cape Town and Johannesburg, we proved to offer quick data transfers, as opposed to some international providers.
Trialing Z1 Storage's product offering
The first step was for Castlerock to test our services with the 10 GB trial account we offer free of charge. All that was needed was for them to sign up and login, the space was auto provisioned and ready to use. This gave them the opportunity to perform due diligence, for as long as they needed and to become comfortable with the service.
We were and still are very confident that our product and performance speaks for itself. We were glad to be able to meet and exceed another clients expectations!
Hidden Costs
During the searching for object storage you have to keep in mind that there are costs not normally taken into account. There include data costs: upload, download and API calls. All contribute greatly towards the cost of cloud storage. Z1 Storage includes all these in the base price, no ugly surprises!
The insurance company Castlerock represented had continuous data protection CDP and needed our service to sustain a high level of ‘IOPS’, it needed to perform a great deal of API calls. We at Z1 Storage include uploads, downloads and API calls within our costing. Our clients pay as they use and we can guarantee that there are no unforeseen charges. The ingress and egress per month is free and equivalent to the amount of data stored monthly. Depending on the capacity used, you can scale up or down according to your needs.
Follow up
Additional techniques where utilized at the clients premises to make our storage harmoniously slot into their existing setup. Some of these processes included S3fs-fuse to create a mount point on the client's internal office file server for non critical files this provided ‘always on’ storage mounts for ad-hoc data storage. And their NAS was setup to use mirrored backups, by configuring as S3 storage destination.
Castlerock managed to upload close to 500 GB within the first 1 week, we where thrilled to see another happy on-boarding. Z1 Storage welcomes Castlerock and we wish them well with the service and their future endeavors. We are confident that they will continue to excel in their field as they are one of the best representatives of the industry, and they know how to choose great service providers ;)
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We would love to hear from you!
About Castlerock
Castlerock has been a provider of ICT services in South Africa for over 10 years. It is part of their mission to champion their clients and as far as possible to ensure their success and their growth. As evinced by Castlerock searching for a local storage service provider that was able to meet their clients needs, they are committed to doing what is in the best interest of their clients. By utilizing our service, Castlerock has managed to help their client avoid exorbitant costs and make sure all their needs are met with quick online storage.
They are more than just a service provider, where possible they give their clients all the tools they need to be as successful as possible. They taking on each project with diligence and great care for the client and the pocket.