Solution: Rubrik
Field: Retail
Breaking up is hard to do, and when a major retailer divided its flagship brands into two separate companies after decades of shared technology infrastructure, it sought assistance, with Advizex stepping in to meet its needs.
As a combined company, this customer had long relied on the Advizex team for steadfast support. As such, Advizex architects were well-aquainted with the existing infrastructure and the unique approaches and IT goals of the newly formed companies.
An urgent need to split IT
To comply with Sarbanes-Oxley legislation mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, individual companies must maintain separate IT environments to prevent access to each other’s systems.
This is a huge undertaking, and the Advizex customer had a mere three years to fulfill it or risk significant financial penalties. While one company preserved the legacy infrastructure and systems, another set out to establish its new architecture based around a cloud-first model on Microsoft Azure.
No easy task to make the split
The intricate process of dividing an IT system as a company branches off into new entities demands meticulous effort and strategic planning to ensure a smooth transition while maintaining operational integrity.
“Just consider the overall effort, if you can imagine, of two large companies splitting — the effort required to be able to separate them physically and logically. It’s a huge undertaking,” says Aaron Harold, Client Business Manager at Advizex.
“I think it’s much harder to break up than it is to merge, and they had employees on both sides working 10-plus-hour days to make that happen.”
Even still, the transition to a cloud-first environment was progressing at a slower rate than desired. As a result, the customer concluded that it was necessary, at least temporarily, to establish an on-premises infrastructure with the objective of eventually migrating to the cloud—all while maintaining the primary objective of fully separating the two company environments.
Backing up the new infrastructure
A new infrastructure requires dedicated data protection and disaster recovery solutions. Before the split, the original company had engaged with Rubrik through Advizex, utilizing it as a cloud service on Microsoft Azure. The new company, equipped with fresh infrastructure, urgently required a backup and recovery solution that was not only swift but also future-ready. Given Rubrik’s ability to safeguard and manage data seamlessly both on-premises and in the cloud, it remained an outstanding choice. Advizex technical consultants meticulously assessed the company’s new architecture to suggest the optimal size and scope for implementing Rubrik, addressing current requirements while keeping an eye on future needs.
“We recommended they start with a foundational-type subscription package, then determine down the road if they want or need more functionality,” Harold says.
Choosing Rubrik allowed them to quickly address their immediate needs, backing up and protecting new on-premises data as quickly as possible without compromising still undetermined future initiatives.
“Down the road, it gives them the confidence that if they start to move into the cloud, Rubrik has the flexibility to allow them to do that. So, they won’t have to change backup strategies along the way.”
Protected today and beyond
With plans in the air, Rubrik’s subscription-based approach proves advantageous, allowing the company to easily scale up or down as required. “They don’t have to buy a lot of things they may not need.”
Providing the new company with a Zero Trust approach to data backup, the solution offers essential simplicity while safeguarding the organization against ransomware threats. While Harold acknowledges that backup and recovery may not be the most captivating technology narrative, he is enthusiastic about Advizex’s contribution to the company’s ongoing modernization initiatives.
“We’re helping to protect the company against cyber attacks, so they can focus their energy where it’s needed on separating the infrastructures and not have to babysit backup and recovery efforts.”
“This 100 percent sets them up for the future, no matter what that future might be.”