CASE STUDY
SOLUTION : DRaaS
By the end of a months-long due diligence process , Laney and his team had their list of potential Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service ( DRaaS ) vendors whittled down to three finalists . After careful evaluation , including selected proof of concepts ( POC ), Laney said their top choice was clear .
“ 11:11 Systems offered , hands down , the best DRaaS solution we tested . 11:11 DRaaS for Zerto is already a product , it already works . It ’ s not like an erector set waiting to be built once you sign the contract ,” said Laney . “ We wanted a product that was well thought out . From the usability and simplicity of the console interface to the flexible capacity , our team thought it was just a much better offering than the others we saw .
“ We had it set up and replicating our three-tiered architecture in a matter of a couple of weeks – it just worked .”
Another key differentiator in favor of 11:11 , according to Laney , was its ability to meet all of AFS ’ industry-specific regulatory requirements – of which there are many .
While not a bank , AFS is regulated like one , having to comply with the strict standards of the Federal Financial Examination Council ( FFIEC ).
It also must demonstrate Recovery Point and Recovery Time Objectives ( RPOs and RTOs ) within a certain range – or face dire consequences . 11:11 offered all that and more , including a dedicated compliance team , which Laney can lean on to understand the complexity of maintaining these regulations .
“ Some may ask : Why did we choose 11:11 ? Well , let ’ s talk about meeting and exceeding expectations . 11:11 didn ’ t just meet our RPO and RTO requirements , it demonstrated the ability to exceed them ,” said Laney . “ We are required to meet five-minute RPOs , meaning we must be able to recover all transactions and all data created within five minutes of experiencing an outage .
“ We also have an RTO of four hours . With 11:11 the time it took to bring up our entire environment was about an hour and a half . Once we saw 11:11 demonstrate those capabilities , that was all she wrote .”
While this in-house system technically worked , it was becoming increasingly burdensome to maintain . According to Laney , the resources required to manage both sites – in both money and time – started making the legacy processes feel less and less like an advantage and more like a hinderance .
So , as part of a larger IT modernization project across the company , Laney and his team decided that it was best to change the company ’ s approach to DR by partnering with a cloud service provider for DRaaS .
“ Like most in-house DR systems , our old set up was quite expensive and difficult to maintain ,” said Laney . “ We wanted a way to make our lives simpler and save some money . So , we embarked on a search , which included a thorough market evaluation , for a solution
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