Mission-Critical Recovery in Hours, Not Weeks: Solving Infrastructure Vulnerabilities for a Leading Consulting Firm
The Customer
A nationwide actuarial consulting firm specializing in retirement and health benefit plans.
The Challenge
The IT Director had significant concerns regarding their current technological infrastructure. The organization faced three critical challenges: insufficient transparency from Azure during system incidents, creating vulnerability to extended downtime in breach scenarios; an outstanding compliance warning related to their disaster recovery strategy that remained unaddressed despite an imminent audit; and inadequate backup restoration capabilities through a current provider, with current recovery timeframes of days to weeks substantially failing to meet their required recovery time objective of just a few hours. These issues present serious operational and compliance risks that require immediate attention.
The Solution
Our comprehensive data protection solution addresses the IT Director’s critical concerns by implementing a One-to-One Methodology that provides complete visibility and control during system incidents. This eliminates the transparency issues currently experienced with Azure and significantly reduces vulnerability in the event of potential breaches. The solution’s geographically redundant architecture, with bootable recovery systems, resolves the outstanding compliance warning related to the disaster recovery strategy, ensuring complete regulatory alignment before the imminent audit.
Most importantly, our approach significantly improves upon the current provider’s inadequate restoration capabilities by reducing recovery timeframes from days or weeks to just hours through specialized SQL Server protection with replicated database instances that integrate with existing backup schedules, while maintaining HIPAA compliance. The end-to-end encrypted, immutable storage system protects against ransomware. At the same time, our implementation process—featuring white-glove service, staged deployment, and proof-of-concept testing—ensures minimal disruption during transition.
Continuous monitoring and regular recovery testing through our co-managed support model guarantees the organization can consistently meet its required recovery time objective of just a few hours, eliminating its current operational and compliance risks.
The Outcomes
Customer Outcomes
- Reduced Recovery Time: Implemented a robust one-to-one disaster recovery solution with geographically redundant backups and a dedicated bootable recovery system, transforming restoration capabilities from days/weeks to hours, successfully meeting the organization’s critical recovery objective while minimizing potential business disruption during system failures.
- Enhanced Security Posture: Implemented comprehensive end-to-end encryption with immutable storage protection, ensuring HIPAA compliance and specialized SQL Server protection that integrates seamlessly with existing backup requirements.
- Operational Optimization: Established a co-managed support model with minimal disruption through white glove staged deployment, allowing internal IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives rather than recovery management.
- Strategic Vendor Consolidation: Facilitated migration of critical infrastructure and backup services to Sky Data Vault, creating a unified protection framework spanning both on-premises and cloud services with continuous monitoring and scheduled recovery testing.
Advisor’s Outcomes
- Strengthened Client Relationship: The Technology Advisor strengthened their trusted partner status by promptly resolving the Customer’s urgent issues and identifying a specialized vendor capable of delivering a tailored, end-to-end solution.
- Reputation Enhancement: The Technology Advisor’s keen ability to spot hidden opportunities within data protection challenges established them as the Customer’s sought-after strategic guidance.
- Expansion Opportunities: Established strategic foundations for expanded service offerings aligned with the client’s growth trajectory.