Cloud Based IT for Retail

30/01/2018

Cloud , Security , Data & AI

Cloud Based IT-Recovery offers Retail organization Business Continuity

Cloud Based IT solutions for store chains are becoming increasingly important. To be up-and-running again after a calamity such as fire, water damage or a cyber attack, it is essential for an organization that data recovery is in order. Only in this way can the continuity and security of data be guaranteed. A large Dutch retail company took the test as a result of a calamity, and came to the conclusion that improvements were needed. They found them in the form of Cloud Based IT Recovery from IT service provider BPSOLUTIONS.

Disaster recovery

With more than fifty branches and more than five thousand employees, the retail business is one of the largest in the Netherlands. In order to steer the work in the right direction, the company makes intensive use of its IT environment. Not only in the field of corporate social responsibility do they like to keep things in order. Also with regard to their data, they want to be sure that they meet the legal requirements and are well prepared for external threats. That is why they decided to subject the disaster recovery to a test after a disaster.

The IT manager explains: “The test was a costly affair. The recovery and the up-and-running of the data took an unexpected amount of time and energy. For example, someone had to come to us physically for the backup tape. That is a shame, because this stopped work and the costs incurred considerably. Partly because we lost a large amount of data. Apart from that, we noticed that we were too busy with IT-related issues on a daily basis and could spend too little time on our core business. ”

In addition, the current IT fallout was experienced as very inflexible. Like many other Dutch organizations, the company is dealing with enormous data growth. In addition, the organization often waited a long time to add extra capacity for backup and disaster recovery, in order to ensure overcapacity. After all, the organization did not want to pay for capacity that they did not use. Moreover, adding extra capacity was a lengthy and costly process.

The desire of the Retail organizatrion: continuity, security and flexibility

Now that the contract with the current provider expired, this was a suitable opportunity to make improvements. “This was the moment to take action. Our wish was a reliable backup solution, with which we can guarantee the continuity and security of data and survive any future IT disasters. Also with a view to the forthcoming GDPR, it is important to arrange this properly. It therefore seemed more convenient to us to store the data in a data center in the Netherlands, so that we can be sure that the data centers comply with our Dutch legislation. Moreover, we did not want to opt for a large cloud provider, because we would like to have personal contact in the event of a calamity. We do not want to be placed in a queue at a call center in case of data loss. We would like to be able to speak to a contact person 24/7, who knows everything about our specific IT environment. “” In addition to safety and continuity, we were looking for more flexibility. With a physical tape you are not able to scale up quickly and data is not backed up in real time, like in the cloud. This ensures that you can lose up to 12 to 48 hours of data. While ad-hoc back-ups are so important with the rapid technological developments and data growth of today. The work pace is incredibly high and a lot of important information is stored every hour. “In order to realize these wishes, the retail company called in the help of BPSOLUTIONS.

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

In order to help the retail chain to restore data and systems within an acceptable timeframe, a contingency plan has been drawn up together with BPSOLUTIONS. This plan contains a business continuity planning, which explains how critical business processes can be continued when data processing is not possible. In addition, a data recovery plan is discussed in which it is established in advance how the business data will be made available again after a calamity. This plan is very important for the IT manager. “The plan is based on our unique business processes and needs and is widely supported by management. For example, it was very important for us that our SAP Database would soon be available again. Moreover, it offers more than false security, because you know for sure that there is a good plan if an emergency situation ever occurs. “BPSolutions offered a fully replicated backup and flexible standby solution: Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) The hybrid nature of the fully managed solution fits seamlessly with the hybrid IT environment of the retail business. BPSolutions made an exact copy of the network configuration of the organization, which was made virtually available. In the case of a fallback situation, no software adjustments have to be made anymore; the fallback network is a replica of the local network and is therefore immediately available. All restores are executed directly and dynamically from the IBM cloud, from an optimally secured datacenter in the Netherlands.

More information about Disaster Recovery?

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