The Royal College of Physicians is using an email protection system that guards against unplanned downtime.

The organisation has 500 mailboxes and more than 100 online users.

Email downtime was having an unacceptable impact on operations, said Christopher Venning, IT network manager at the Royal College of Physicians.

“Unplanned email outages due to Exchange server downtime, lasting up to four hours each, had a significant impact on productivity in the past," he said.

"With close to 300 staff dependent on our global business continuity for the running of training conferences, carrying out research and other communications, we could not afford to lose email connectivity."

The college selected a product from IT supplier Teneros for safeguarding Microsoft applications.

“The Teneros appliance eliminates the pain of email downtime at a fraction of the cost of other solutions," said Venning. "It has improved our confidence in our email system, thereby reducing the stress on our IT team."