Brownsman

Brothers’ new enterprise to provide a back-up plan – Nov 25 2010 by John Hill, The Journal

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 20:52:50 +0000

FORMER Canary Wharf analyst Giles Wright has returned north to set up a disaster recovery and back-up company in Newcastle.

Wright worked as a systems analyst at JP Morgan from 2003 to 2008, and then spent a year and a half as a senior analyst with the New York Stock Exchange before taking a leap with his own business. While Brownsman IT was set up in 2008, Giles and his brother Mark began the process of forging it in its current form four months ago.

The company is now ready to offer its services to companies requiring the offsite storage of data, and Wright said North East digital companies are high up on its list.

He said: “Digital companies have a lot of data and graphics, and deal with terabytes of data. Some companies still back up using tape, which is an older and less efficient method. We haven’t used tape for music for years, so why should we still use it for business data?

“Until recently it’s not been efficient to do online back-up. One of the problems in the past has been the speed of people’s broadband connections, but that has increased quite significantly over the last few years, and there are a new raft of exchange upgrades going through that’s going to increase the type of service that businesses in the North East are going to be able to use.”

Brownsman IT initially manually backs up the client’s system and transfers it to its Newcastle data centre, encrypting it to military encryption standard at source. It also installs its CloudBank software on the system, allowing it to continue backing up changes to data in future months.

Wright said: “Every day the company will make changes to their data, so every night the system will work out what’s changed and back up the changes.”

Brownsman has just moved into Hoults Yard in Newcastle, and Wright believes businesses are becoming more aware of the perils of data loss.

He said: “There are various ways to lose data. There’s fire, theft, flooding and accidental loss. You can get a virus that will corrupt your data.

“There are stats out there about what would happen to a company when it loses all its customer data. 90% of all businesses that experience a massive data loss don’t survive the next two years.

“People might be slightly more wary about using these services at first but as broadband services speed up they’re going to be using it more and more for document storage and transferring files.

“It was supposed to be just a North East business at first, but we’re seeing interest from clients in the Leeds and Manchester area so we can take on clients from outside the region.”

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The North East – A great place for digital and creative media businesses to grow

admin — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:36:08 +0000

Over the past few years, the North East of England has developed a thriving digital and creative media industry that the region can be proud of. Part of the reason for this success is down to the local hubs that have sprung up across the region. From Boho and Digital city in Middlesbrough, Sunderland Software City and the Ouseburn creative hub in Newcastle, the region has provided an excellent level of support to it’s growing and established creative and digital media businesses.

Boho and Digital city

Created by One North East, the University of Teesside and Middlesbrough Council, Digital City has the aim of generating and sustaining a fast growing, high level economic base in the creative and digital sector for the Teesside area.

Digital City essentially consists of two main elements, The Institute of Digital Innovation and the Boho Zone. The Institute of Digital Innovation is located within the Phoenix Centre. It aims to provide support to digital academics allowing them to develop into successful entrepreneurs.

The Boho Zone provides space for new creative and digital businesses to “grow, network and do business”. According to their website, “Everything we do is geared to making North East the best place to develop your digital media, digital technology or creative business. Whether you’re an entrepreneur with a business idea, an established business looking to expand, a start up, one that’s looking to relocate or an organisation needing product development or finance, we’d love to work with you.”

Sunderland Software City

Sunderland Software city has similar aims to “Digital City” in Teesside, with more emphasis on software development rather than the creative digital media. There aim is to ‘…inspire and encourage the growth of the Software Industry in the North East of England, and to make the area an attractive location of choice for software businesses..” They are a public-private partnership of the City of Sunderland, the University of Sunderland, the North East Business and Innovation Centre, One NorthEast, Codeworks Connect and the private sector software industry.

Sunderland Software City currently operates out of a number of buildings across the city, but are looking to create a new state of the art environment at the heart of the city centre.

Ouseburn Creative Hub

The Ouseburn area to the West of Newcastle city centre was the cradle of the industrial revolution in Newcastle. For a long time it has also been the home to some of the most creative businesses in Newcastle and was the former home to the world famous Maling Pottery. In recent more digital and creative businesses have been moving into the area, and a variety of developments have sprung up to support them. Three of the more prominent developments include The Media Exchange, Hoults Yard and Maling Court.

“Mere Mortals” are a fine example of a world renowned digital media company that has made this are of Newcastle it’s home.

With these digital and creative media companies comes a high volume of digital data that needs to stored, manipulated and transferred. For this to be carried out effectively requires investment in systems and networks that are up to the task of dealing with such high volumes of data.

Over the next few years it is hoped that the telecoms companies will be rolling out an extension of the fibre optic network in the region which will allow for easier and faster transfer of files between facilities. In the mean time it is still possible for businesses working in the creative and digital media sector in the north east to take advantage of cloud based services as a method of storing their data, backing it up and transferring it to and from clients and partners.

For more details of our services and how we can help your business, contact brownsman on 0191 500 6353 or email us at info@brownsman.com.

New service offers online backup, disaster recovery and support to local businesses

admin — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:36:52 +0000

North East based company Brownsman IT Solutions is today launching CloudBank, a cost effective, secure way for companies to back up all their data, protecting them from possible loss though theft, fire, flood or hardware failure. To mark the launch customers can get a free one month trial of the new service.

70% of companies that experience data loss go out of business within a year. With Cloudbank all data including customer details, sales records, financial information and reports can be secured on two off site servers. Data is encrypted and easily retrieved when it’s needed.

Brownsman protects businesses while offering local, expert IT support face to face, on the phone or online.

Giles Wright, Managing Director of Brownsman said “A lot of businesses don’t consider their backup strategy until it’s too late. Once a computer is damaged in anyway, recovering the data from it is not always possible. It is essential that businesses in the North East can continue running in the event of a disaster. Brownsman are here to make sure their data is always available to them, no matter what happens to their IT infrastructure”.

Brownsman is also looking for IT companies, business consultants and accountants who’d like to earn commission by offering CloudBank to their existing customers.

So many companies today are still using outdated methods of backing up their business data. We wouldn’t consider purchasing or storing music on tape anymore, yet we still seem happy to trust it with our mission critical business data?

For more information or to book your free trial call 0844 884 2379 or email info@brownsman.com. To find out more visit www.brownsman.com.

What’s wrong with Tape Backups?

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:04:28 +0000

For the past 50 years the principal method of backing up your data offsite has been to use magnetic tape which is then manually taken to a remote location and stored. We wouldn’t consider purchasing or storing music on tape anymore, yet we still seem happy to trust it with our mission critical business data?
There are a number of common complaints from those using tape to backup and store their data:

Tapes Fail. They are a fragile media and are prone to degrading and breaking.
Tape Drives Fail
Backups will often outgrow the tape and need to spanned across many tapes.
Restoring an entire system from tape can be difficult and time consuming
There can sometimes be errors on restore. The consistency of the backup is not always tested.
Open files sometimes not backed up
Retrieving a single file from backup can often also be difficult and time consuming.
Offsite Tape Rotation a pain – time consuming and unreliable

Most companies today understand the need to maintain an offsite backup of their data, allowing them to continue functioning in the event of a disaster. They may have set up a Technology Recovery Action Plan some time ago when tape was the only real solution to the need for offsite backup. Now that high-speed broadband is readily available to businesses across the country, the option to backup your data safely, securely and easily online has become the most practical and cost-effective option.
Businesses that haven’t seen an online backup system in action are often surprised at how easy, fast and manageable it is when compared to their existing method of backing up to tape.

Financial organisations that are required by the FSA to keep several years worth of data offsite have also used tape until quite recently. Now that the technology has moved on and become more reliable, these organisations, which are often slow to react to new movements in technology, are all moving away from tape to disk based backup storage.
There is good reason for companies like this to be making this move. In The Cost of Lost Data (2003), Dr. David Smith estimates the average cost of irrecoverably lost data at more than £5000 per megabyte. If the data is business transaction data and key to your company’s regulatory compliance, the costs involved can greatly increase. Just a small section of data become corrupted due degradation in tape, the costs involved to a company can be very significant, both financially and in terms of loss of reputation.

If you are currently using tape for offsite storage and would like to discuss how we can help implement a more secure and reliable offsite storage system, then call us on 0191 500 6353 or email info@brownsman.com.

How can Cloud Computing help my small business?

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:14:29 +0000

Cloud Computing can be described as the use of online services that have traditionally been carried out locally on the desktop PC or laptop. One examples is “Google Mail”, where instead of downloading your email to your desktop, it is kept in your inbox online and accessed through a browser. This gives you the freedom to access it wherever you are on a variety of devices – phone, laptop, desktop etc.

Large companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft all offer cloud based productivity applications, such as online email, online calendars that sync with your desktop calendar and the ability to create and store documents online. These applications can all be said to run “in the cloud” and can help small businesses to reduce costs and increase productivity.

Cloud computing can also be used by smaller providers to create easily scalable, powerful services that can also help small businesses. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is becoming much more common as a method of providing services such as web hosting and online backup services. Without the need for vast amounts of capital outlay, IT Service Providers can now provide SMEs with a high quality service that was once only available to larger organisations. Cloud Computing Servers can be created and deployed quickly and should more resources be required, the specification can be dynamically increased or decreased at the flick of a switch.

According to Businesslink – Cloud computing has the following benefits for business:

Reduced IT costs
Scalability of service
Access to new technology
Greater opportunities for flexible working practices
Enterprise-level back-up
Better environmental impact

If you’d like to find out more about cloud computing and how it can help your business, email us at .

Are you backing up?

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:45:30 +0000

So are you backing up? If not then there are 3 statistics you should probably be aware of:

According to a 2004 report by the DTI and PwC, “70% of small businesses that experience a data loss go out of business within a year.”¹

According to the US Strategic Research Institute, “…companies that aren’t able to resume operations within ten days of a disaster hit are not likely to survive. Many factors can cause data loss, including: fire, power outages, employee theft, viruses and hackers, as well as modern tragedies that can leave companies without access to buildings and important documents.”²

A report by the Hartford Financial Services Group suggested that “Of those businesses that experience a disaster and have no emergency plan, 43 percent never reopen; of those that do reopen, only 29 percent are still operating two years later.”³

Some businesses back up to local hard drives or other computers on their internal network, which is good practice in the first instance, however a local backup won’t protect your business data in the event of a disaster, such as a fire, flood or theft.

Until recently, most businesses wanting to back up their data offsite had to rely on magnetic tape technology to achieve this. Now that most small businesses have high speed broadband connections, the practice of backing up their data online to remote servers has become a much more affordable and practical solution.

Backing up to remote server online is more secure, more efficient and more reliable than other methods of remote backup, as well as now being more affordable for the small and medium sized business.

If you’d like to discuss your backup needs with us at Brownsman then call us on 0844 884 2379 or email .

¹ http://www.score.org/pdf/HP_Download_ImpactofDisaster.pdf
² http://www.techworld.com/cmsdata/whitepapers/833/How%20Secure%20is%20your%20Storage_Symantec.pdf
³ The Hartford’s Guide to Emergency Preparedness Planning, created by The Hartford Financial Services Group and now published by J.J. Keller & Associates

Free Technology Assessment of your Business

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:19:32 +0000

Brownsman are now offering a free Technology Assessment of your company which could highlight areas of potential risk to your business as well as increasing your profile, revenue and productivity.

When carrying out an assessment, 4 main areas are covered; Electronic Marketing, Network, Computer Performance and Data Management.

When considering Electronic Marketing, we assess how your website is performing in terms of bringing in business, as well as determining whether there are any other methods of e-marketing you could benefit from. E-newsletters and Social Media are now commonly used by business to keep in touch with their customers and make sure you are at the front of the queue when they’re considering making a purchase.

When we examine your network we are looking at the security of your systems and data, the performance of the network and whether you are using the network to its full capability.

Computer performance can be affected in a number of ways and can be a major cause of poor productivity. It can sometimes lead a company to spend money on new hardware unnecessarily. A regular maintenance program can improve the performance of your PCs dramatically, increase productivity massively and reduce your spend on new hardware.

Data management is often far from the mind of the small business owner until it’s too late. Not backing up your data, ideally to a remote location is the only way you can guarantee that the all important customer database isn’t lost forever. Not handling your existing data in a way that provides easy access to the relevant information to your employees can also be a cause of reduced productivity.

Brownsman will consider all these areas in relation to your business and provide you with a written report outlining what risks your company faces and how you can start to improve how you do business

Download a sample Technology Assessment Report (web page | pdf) and see what Brownsman can do for your business.

To apply for your free consultation and Technology Assessment, fill in the form on the contact page, call us on 0844 8842379 or email

New website launched

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:39:17 +0000

Welcome to the new-look brownsman.com, home of brownsman – IT Consultants for North East England. Many thanks to Ian Millen for the design work and new company identity.

The site is now powered by wordpress, using php with a mysql database back end to allow for easier content management.

Who are Brownsman and what do we do?

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:30:17 +0000

Set up in 2008 by Giles Wright, Brownsman has provided IT Solutions to a variety of organisations – from some of the largest multinationals to small, local businesses. We concentrate on providing Technology Risk Assessment and Disaster Recovery plans to Small and Medium sized Enterprises. This combines with our secure, simple and practical on-line/off-site backup service to ensure that your business continues to function in the event of a technology failure.

Who are we?

Giles Wright, BA Hons, MSc, MBCS (Managing Director)

Giles has worked in technology for over a decade, spending much of that time with JPMorgan and, more recently, as a Senior Analyst with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE Liffe). Over this period he gained extensive experience in developing, supporting and managing a variety of very large computer systems used by thousands of people. Giles has worked with enterprise level technologies such as Sybase, Oracle and SQL Server database systems on UNIX, Linux and Windows servers, however he has also had the opportunity to create and maintain smaller applications using technologies such as MySQL and PHP.

As well as a BA Hons Degree in Business Management and an MSc in Software Development, he is also a Sun Microsystems certified Solaris Systems Administrator and Network Administrator, a Redhat (Linux) Certified Technician and a Professional Member of the British Computer Society.

Mark Wright, BSc. Hons, MBA (Management Consultant)

Mark has worked as a research chemist for a Fortune 500 company, a management consultant for one of the ‘big three’ global accounting firms and has extensive experience in marketing, FMCG, manufacturing, transportation, logistics and e-commerce sectors.

Senior management in a world recognized international logistics provider. His experience in the FMCG distribution field includes taking a previous enterprise from start up to $50 million annually within 36 months.

Mark has a chemistry degree with honours from the University of Manchester, and an MBA from one of the UK’s most prestigious institutions, Durham University’s Business School.

Where does the name come from?

Brownsman is one of the Farne Islands, a group of Islands off the Northumberland coast made up of the Whin Sill. The Whin Sill is an outcrop of rock that stretches the length of the region from Teesdale to Lindisfarne.