Remote Data Backup (RBUSS)

About the Service

Our Remote Data Backup (RBUSS) service is based on Redstor's RBUSS and is a secure, cloud-hosted backup service suitable for all schools with options to protect data stored on school servers, devices and in Office 365.

As well as being used to backup business critical information in SIMS and FMS (to help meet the Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS)), it can also be used to back up all admin files and curriculum data.

As schools increasingly move to storing their essential data in the cloud, the service also includes an option for backing up data stored in your school's Microsoft 365 tenancy. The service helps schools meet the DfE recommendations in the Technology Standards for Cyber Security in schools and colleges.

What are the benefits?

Secure and cost-effective off-site backup: Protect your school's sensitive data with a secure, encrypted, automatic and cost-effective off-site backup service
Enhanced data security: Backups are encrypted before leaving the school and securely transferred to two separate UK-based data centres, ensuring the security and recoverability of critical school data
Compliance with regulations: Helps your school comply with the Data Protection Act, GDPR and ICO best practice guidance
Meet DfE standards: Assists your school in meeting the DfE technology standards for backing up essential data
No on-site hardware needed: Eliminate the need for on-site backup hardware, removing concerns about the reliability of data retrieval from tapes and the security of your backup data
Efficient Disaster Recovery: Quick and easy data recovery for excellent disaster recovery and business continuity
Daily automatic backups: The RBUSS service performs daily backups of your school's data via an ESS SIMS approved backup service, the only ESS approved service for backing up SIMS data
Certified providers: Redstor, the providers of RBUSS, are certified to ISO27001 and ISO9001 standards
Multiple options: The service includes multiple offerings to meet schools' needs and budgets from a fully comprehensive inclusive service for on-premise and Office 365 services; whole server backups and a mini backup only for SIMS data on small servers/workstations

What's Included?

2025/26 Remote Data Backup (RBUSS) Service Options:

**NEW for 2025/26** Remote Data Backup Education Bundle for Servers, Endpoints and Office 365
Remote Data Backup Whole School Backup (Full System or Selective configuration)
Remote Data Backup for Admin Systems (Selective configuration)

New for 2025/26:

Remote Data Backup Education Bundle for Servers, Endpoints and Office 365

We now offer a fully inclusive backup service combining key requirements for backing up data. It ensures a comprehensive back-up of on-premise servers, desktops and laptops, PLUS data in your Office 365 tenancy into a simple to request and managed single service subscription.

This service provides the following benefits for schools.

Save time: Backup all school data held on servers or other devices in school
Simple management: No more selecting which files are the most important to backup and which can be ignored
Easily backup cloud data: Backup all school users Office 365 SharePoint, One Drive and Teams data
Support your transition to cloud-based services: by helping to ensure that your school's important data stored in the cloud is backed up and retrievable as part of your school's disaster recovery plan
No limits: Avoid time wasted assessing the importance of data – all data can be backed up (subject to a fair usage policy)
Simple to purchase: single subscription model based on the pupil count for your school

We also offer two remote data backup (RBUSS) options for data on school servers only:

Whole School Backup: available as either Full System Backup or Selective Backup configurations. Whole School backup (can backup data on multiple servers)
Admin Backup: available as a Selective Backup configuration only to backup data on a single SIMS server only

Note: Our Microsoft Office 365 Backup can no longer be purchased on its own, we now recommend the new Remote Data Backup Education Bundle for Servers, Endpoints and Office 365 service option for data stored in your Office 365 tenancy. Schools who purchased Microsoft Office 365 Backup service in 2024/25 will automatically have their multiple subscriptions combined into the new option from 1 April 2025.

Service Features

Feature	Description
*NEW for 2025/26* Remote Data Backup Education Bundle for Servers, Endpoints and Office 365	Our new recommended backup option and our only option which can include backups of data stored in your Office 365 tenancy This comprehensive backup ensures that in the event of a complete server loss or hardware failure, or a cyber-attack, that more data is available, to assist recovery from cyber-attack No limits on data being backed up from either your school servers, endpoints or your school's Office 365 tenancy Helps your school meet advice from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to ensure you have backups of all essential data
Whole School Backup	Back up data from all your school servers or endpoints (subject to purchasing required data storage level) Available as either a Selective backup or our Full System Backup configuration, and in multiple storage size options Provision and configuration of software to enable a daily Remote Backup including ESS SIMS, Finance FMS, selection of standard files and folders, etc. The software can be installed and configured on the school's curriculum server, administration servers and PCs, dependent on the individual school's need Each device will require installation of the RBUSS ESE client
Admin System Backup	Enables backup data from your school SIMS server only (subject to purchasing required data storage level) The SIMS server will require installation of the RBUSS ESE client Available as Selective backup configuration only Provision and configuration of software to enable a daily Remote Backup including ESS SIMS, Finance FMS, selection of standard files and folders, etc. The software is typically only installed on your SIMS server This low-cost service provides a small backup for critical data Most schools require approximately 50GB to just back up SIMS Limited capacity only, three different storage options available
Full System Backup configuration	This configuration is used in the new Remote Data Backup Education Bundle for Servers, Endpoints and Office 365 and is also the recommended model for Whole School Backups (see above). It provides: Full System Backup of all data on the protected server includes system state backup (servers only) includes SIMS data backup (SIMS servers only) For most schools, changing to this configuration of backup for the Whole School Backup service will require a larger backup data storage option than the selective option
Selective Backup configuration	An alternative to Full System backup, the Selective backup configuration for Whole School or Admin System backups (see above) provides the following by default: Back up the system state (servers only) and SIMS data only Plus, a standard selection of folders and the files they contain, to ensure additional important user data that the school needs is backed up Please see specification table in the Remote Data Backup support on our website, for the default list of locations that will be backed up
Microsoft Office 365 backup	Our Microsoft Office 365 Remote Data backup will occur at a tenant level for all users and content (see exclusions section) The backup capacity is available for use by the whole Microsoft 365 tenancy. Users are not allocated a personal backup. For each user (Faculty or Student licence), we will back up the following: Exchange Online Mailbox OneDrive content OneNote contents We will also back up the following, per Microsoft 365 tenancy: SharePoint content Teams content

General features	Description
Offsite Backup Storage	Backup Data is stored in dual UK based data centres
Encrypted backup	All data is encrypted in transit to and from your school ensuring maximum protection for your sensitive data Encrypted backup provides your school with secure off-site backups
Data recovery	Data can be recovered on request from: every daily backup from this month every daily backup from last month last backup of the previous two months
Administration	RBUSS is monitored daily, with reports created indicating success or failure of scheduled backups Incidents are logged for failures and schools are contacted to advise them of the failure and the issues are resolved, where possible, at first contact