South Africa Waste Management Service Provider Pikitup Chooses Redstor

Pikitup Johannesburg (Pty) Ltd, an integrated waste management service provider to Johannesburg, South Africa, has been using the Redstor Ltd backup solution to ensure the integrity of its data across its more than 500 computers and six servers in the city.

Pikitup Johannesburg is the integrated waste management service provider to the City of Johannesburg. The company employs more than 4,500 people and uses more than 200 trucks to provide refuse collection services to private and business residents.

It services the entire 1,625 square kilometers of Johannesburg collecting approximately 6,000 tons of waste daily. It has 12 waste management depots located throughout the city, 44 garden refuse sites, and four active landfill sites.

Prior to 2011, Pikitup did not have any backup system in place.

“Being a waste management company, means that IT was not traditionally a big focus area for the business,” says Thobile Mngadi, IT technician, Pikitup.

However, she says: “It became increasingly important for Pikitup to manage its backups to ensure the business was running more efficiently. With fleet management playing an increasingly critical role, it needed to have backups in place to ensure there is redundancy in the event of data loss.“

To address these needs, it installed the Attix5 backup solution in 2011 (which was acquired by Redstor last year). Its investment in the technology has been growing over the years reflecting a shift in focus around its data.

“Pikitup has become a data-rich environment especially when factoring in the fleet aspect of the business. We have to ensure that our data is protected and there is a BC strategy in place should the worst happen,” she says.

“Using Redstor has been a smooth process. From the get-go, we have been impressed by its user-friendliness. To further enhance our backup strategy, we are also committed to driving a culture of backup awareness inside the organisation,” she says.

Currently, Pikitup is using Redstor at its head office and 16 other sites. The solution services more than 500 desktop and laptop machines as well as the six servers of the business.

“We backup approximately 6.22TB of data monthly using Redstor,” says Mngadi. “All our backups are running smoothly from both the desktop and laptop side as well as the server one. Redstor pro-actively monitors our backups so we have the peace of mind that everything is as it should be.“

“We have performed quite a few recoveries on the desktop side and never had any issues restoring our data. What is more, the files are recovered quickly so our employees can remain focused on the job at hand. Redstor is definitely meeting our expectations without any issues or compromises,” she added. “This is vital to take the pressure off the business so it can provide the level of service required by the organisation.”