The following article was written for the Western Daily Press

With over 5,500 customers relying on uninterrupted email, internet and telephony services, Bath-based Voice over Internet Provider (VoIP), Gradwell Dot Com Ltd is well aware that nothing can be left to chance in terms of safeguarding its systems.

The company, which employs 20 full-time members of staff, has recently taken steps to
strengthen its contingency plans in the event of an unexpected disruption to operations.
With a core business building and managing internet systems that provide email, domain management, web hosting and telecoms support to customers, being able to provide continuous services at all times is key.

Managing director, Peter Gradwell explains: “The two big issues for us are firstly, how would we physically cope as a company should anything happen to our premises, and secondly, how would we ensure we maintained our customers’ services.

“Our own use of the VoIP technology and products we provide covers off the first issue. All of our vital systems are accessed via the web, meaning that wherever an internet connection is made, the full range of support services can still be accessed, including our corporate telephone system.

“Our staff all have Broadband connections at home, meaning that if we were unable to access the offices for any reason, we could simply send everyone home and still be fully operational.”

Protecting the integrity of customer’s systems is crucial, and multiple servers in sites around the world are used to ensure that the safety of data is not reliant on a single location.

“Like many other internet service providers, we use specialist facilities in London to store our servers and key information. The site combines experienced support with high-level security and power resilience, all of which are critical to us being able to provide our customers with consistent levels of service should our own servers be taken down.

“We are heavily reliant on these London Servers to provide the backbone to our infrastructure. However, with our customer base growing so rapidly, we have had to consider the implications of a major incident affecting the capital and now also have servers in the United States with plans to build out our facilities into Leeds and Edinburgh”.