Cotton Companies Walks the Walk (
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Disaster assessment specialist practices what it preaches with Terian solutionCotton companies knows all about disaster recovery. The company, which specializes in the restoration of fire- and water-damaged properties, also realizes that practicing what it preaches goes a long way to preserving credibility.
That's why Cotton, of Houston, hired solution provider Terian Solutions, also in Houston, to prepare the company for worst-case scenarios involving the loss of vital business data. Terian, in business for five years, sells hardware and provides managed backup services. Its annual revenue was $10 million last year.
"Cotton came to us because it liked our Secure Backup services better than any other backup services it found and because its headquarters is a quarter of a mile away from ours," said Mike Colesante, president of Terian. "[The customer] liked the idea that we could be on-site in minutes in case of an emergency."
Cotton employs more than 350 workers and has more than $50 million in annual revenue. Despite national reach, the company focuses on the Gulf Coast with services such as assessment and planning, restoration, and environmental remediation.
Until recently its IT department was a one-man show run by Jeffrey Miller, Cotton's IT director. Having seen enough computer rooms destroyed in natural disasters, Miller was worried, so he turned to Terian for peace of mind, data protection and business continuity.
Small business, big market.
Terian's Colesante said small and midsize businesses are wise to outsource important tasks such as backup to a specialist with the right technology and facilities to manage them.
"A single serious event resulting in data loss or application downtime can result in significant revenue loss, fines or other negative implications," Colesante said.
Terian moved Cotton from tape backups to its automated Secure Backup solution, which uses Asigra's Televaulting technology.
"Jeff [Miller] liked the fact that the solution provides on-site, disk-to-disk backup at LAN speed, as well as the convenience and security of remote data vaulting in two locations," said Colesante.
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