Horticulturist appreciates the beauty of online backup
“This is a company of gardeners, not technologists. But we understand and use MozyPro because it is so simple.”
Horticulturist Kevin Simons spent six years in the technology industry selling backup services before he decided to return to his passion and grow flowers. His technological experience prompted him to search for a turnkey backup solution he could use in his new line of work with landscaping business Robert W. Poyas. Inc.
The San Francisco Bay Area is known for its cultural diversity and liberal views, but it’s also home to one of California’s most prestigious landscaping companies, Robert W. Poyas, Inc. The company specializes in commercial landscape design and maintenance and works for local government and commercial properties throughout the Bay Area.
With countless project proposals, financials, and of photos of its work, the company has a great deal of proprietary information to protect, so they hired Kevin Simons. With a background that included horticulture, Simons had also worked previously in the technology industry for six years selling backup services, making him a natural fit to manage business development and provide technological oversight for Robert W. Poyas.
At first, when Simons wasn’t transporting flowers to project sites or wading in a swamp, he was backing up important data from employees’ computers onto an external hard drive. However, having consulted on backup strategies in the past, even he knew his current backup strategy was flawed.
“As time went on and I got busier, the interval between data backups got further and further apart,” Simons said. “I knew our situation was risky, but I couldn’t find a small business solution to fit our needs.”
Simons needed an affordable solution that would alleviate the need to back up the company’s entire database each time a backup was performed. He was accustomed to time-consuming backups, and wanted to cut back on or eliminate the four hours he spent each month trying to maintain a current backup. He also wanted an automatic, web-based backup solution that would store the company’s information offsite and restore data in a timely fashion.
“I don’t like to rely solely on my hardware,” Simons said. “Web-based computing and offsite storage are essential, and the more I can offload and put into a high-powered server firm, the better.”
“I just needed a solution that would work for our company,” he said. “So when I read about MozyPro and saw that it was exactly what I was looking for, my search for a solid backup solution was over.” As an automatic, web-based backup service that stores files at a secure, remote data center, MozyPro fulfilled all of Simons’ requirements and even exceeded them with additional features, including 30-day file versioning.
“Who hasn’t hit ‘Save’ when they meant to hit ‘Save As’? MozyPro saves us from our own mistakes,” Simons said. “With other backup solutions, restoration is horrific and at times more difficult than recreating the data. But now when I mess up, MozyPro gives me back the original file within minutes.”
MozyPro is also smart enough to perform incremental backups, meaning it doesn’t have to back up every file each night. It backs up only files that were added or the portions of files that changed during the day, making backups lightning fast and up to date. “With MozyPro I simply don’t think about backup. It’s the equivalent of having a fleet of trucks and never having to change the oil. It’s effortless to keep my company data safe,” he said.
With the extra time that accompanies a reliable and automatic backup solution, Simons now focuses on the other hats he wears within the company. Such dedication has helped the company earn the first place trophy in the medium commercial maintenance category by the California Landscape Contractors Association two years in a row.
And while data loss statistics used to lurk in the back of his mind, Simons now has the peace of mind that his data is protected. Best of all, everyone in the company agrees. “This is a company of gardeners, not technologists,” he said. “But we understand and use MozyPro because it is so simple.”