Comprehensive Backup & Disaster Recovery for Critical Energy Infrastructure: How Sky Data Vault Protected the Customer’s Operations from Day One
The Customer
The Customer is an energy technology company headquartered on the West Coast. With a growing team and critical infrastructure supporting power grid operations, the Customer needed enterprise-grade data protection to safeguard their production systems, virtual machines, and Microsoft 365 environment.
The Challenge
The Customer was operating dozens of VMware virtual machines and physical Windows servers out of their West Coast data center, as well as Microsoft 365 with Entra, with no cloud backup or disaster recovery protection. The company faced several critical risks:
- No disaster recovery capability existed for business-critical systems, including domain controllers, databases, and production infrastructure
- No cloud backup for any on-premises servers or Microsoft 365 data
- A planned hypervisor migration from VMware to Proxmox – driven by Broadcom’s post-acquisition licensing changes added significant complexity, requiring a backup and DR solution capable of supporting both environments through the transition without service disruption
- A small IT team needed a manageable, turnkey solution, not more complexity
- Compliance requirements demanded multi-tier retention ranging from operational recovery to long-term compliance retention
- Microsoft’s native M365 retention was insufficient for organizational data protection requirements
The Solution
Sky Data Vault delivered a comprehensive, multi-layered backup and disaster recovery solution tailored to the Customer’s specific infrastructure and compliance needs.
Backup as a Service (BaaS) was deployed via an SDV-managed local appliance installed on-site, providing software licensing for all protected servers and a tiered backup schedule that delivers daily, weekly, and monthly recovery points for extended retention. The appliance is fully managed, monitored, and maintained by SDV as part of the monthly service, with secure SDV Cloud storage that provides off-site recovery images and optional encryption.
Veeam Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) provides cloud-based recovery nodes protecting the Customer’s most critical infrastructure with aggressive RPO/RTO targets. A three-tier snapshot architecture ensures critical systems
receive the highest frequency of protection, with recovery images available within minutes of a failover request. Annual DR testing is included free in the monthly service fees, and post-event runtime is provided at no additional charge for an extended period each calendar year.
Microsoft 365 & Entra ID Backup secures all of the Customer’s M365 users covering Exchange, Teams, and SharePoint with a long-term retention policy. Entra ID backup includes protection for Conditional Access and Intune policies. The Customer has flexible restore options – either self-service or SDV-managed support, and a compact local storage appliance was deployed to improve recovery speeds.
The entire solution was designed as a future-proof architecture, supporting the Customer’s current VMware environment through and beyond the planned migration to Proxmox without service disruption or rearchitecting. SDV’s snapshot-based replication approach is compatible with both hypervisors, enabling a staged migration while maintaining full protection throughout the transition window. A tier-based pricing model allows growth within capacity ranges without contract renegotiation over the term of the agreement.
The Results
- All virtual and physical infrastructure is now fully protected with cloud backup and an on-site appliance
- Critical systems are protected with rapid DRaaS recovery capabilities
- All M365 users are secured with long-term retention and Entra ID protection
- Predictable monthly costs through tier-based pricing replaced the risk of unbudgeted data loss
- Zero-to-full protection was achieved across all infrastructure layers within weeks of contract signing
- Compliance requirements are met with multi-tier retention covering both operational and extended needs
- Seamless protection maintained throughout the VMware-to-Proxmox migration, with DRaaS fully operational on the new hypervisor upon migration completion
Why Sky Data Vault Won
The Customer evaluated multiple approaches during their selection process. What set Sky Data Vault apart was the ability to consolidate backup, disaster recovery, and M365 protection under a single managed provider, simplifying management for a small IT team. SDV’s turnkey, white-glove implementation handled everything from appliance deployment to M365 onboarding, while the solution’s built-in flexibility ensures support for the current VMware environment and the active migration to Proxmox without re-architecting. SDV’s hypervisor-agnostic approach, providing snapshot-based replication compatible with both VMware and Proxmox, was a decisive factor, ensuring the Customer would not need to re-evaluate or re-architect their DR solution mid-migration. Transparent, tier-based pricing eliminated surprise costs, and seamless collaboration between SDV, the Customer, and the Partner ensured a smooth design, budgeting, and deployment process from start to finish.