Customer Case Study
Roswell Park Cancer Center Automates Offsite Backup and Disaster Recovery with CyberFortress
Founded in 1989 and based out of a 29-acre campus in Buffalo, NY, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of the top cancer research institutes in the world. As a result, they are able to provide patients with care that incorporates the latest breakthroughs in cancer diagnostics, technologies and therapies.
Much of the research Roswell Park conducts is done for other institutions through a variety of grants. These institutions have stringent requirements for the protection of sensitive, extremely valuable clinical data. Roswell Park needed to be able to pass customer audits and provide a three-tiered backup approach.
They already had two of the three tiers in place. For Tier 1, the institution had direct access storage (DAS) and network attached storage (NAS) backups that were connected to the on-premises network. For Tier 3, they worked with an offsite storage provider to safely store tape backups in a secure facility.
But Jonathan Kiddy, director of IT operations for the Clinical Trial Development Division (CTDD) of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, needed to fill a gap and provide Tier 2 data protection and disaster recovery (DR). Specifically, Kiddy needed to have automated offsite backup and DR capabilities. And that wasn’t his only requirement.
“We also needed the solution to access our Veeam products — that integration was critical,” Kiddy said. “But the big questions were, could it work with our services and would customers trust the solution? We’re funded by grants, and the data we work with is often procured or not our own, plus we have many government customers. We have to pass stringent audits that require a great deal of information, such as the time and cost involved with IT, and it needs to be detailed.”.
A Walk in the Park
CyberFortress had been recommended to Kiddy by a former colleague. As a global provider of highly available and secure cloud data protection solutions, they were quickly able to create a solution for Roswell Park that met all of its customers’ requirements. CyberFortress is also a Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) Platinum Partner and two-time Veeam Partner of the Year, possessing deep experience handling sensitive data that needs to be compliant with schemas such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS and HIPAA.
CyberFortress Managed Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) and CyberFortress Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service are solutions based on Veeam that provide automated, offsite backup and DR, and they’re always tailored to fit the specific needs of the customer. The solution was compliant with customer requirements and had all the information Roswell Park needed to complete and pass customer audits. Plus, the solution was so easy to use, enabling CyberFortress to turn a laborious data protection process into a walk in the park.
Acing the Test
According to Kiddy, Roswell Park’s CTDD maintains and protects 170 terabytes (TB) of data in total. About 1 TB is critical information, and 70 TBs are now overseen by CyberFortress. Before turning any system loose, however, he needs to verify it can be trusted. To that end, Kiddy conducted a comprehensive, full DR test.
Roswell’s CTDD tested every dataset in its backup and staging environment. Failover was required to meet service level agreements (SLAs) in customer contracts, and tests show that the CTDD was able to recover the data quickly to meet stringent metrics. CyberFortress also helped to create a bullet-proof plan he could present to superiors, illustrating how the CTDD would recover data and what the tests accomplished. This raised awareness about the need for strong data protection and enlisted continued support.
“I had to verify CyberFortress’ capabilities before I could trust the system live – it wasn’t a set it and forget it situation,” Kiddy recalled. “The test delivered everything we expected, and when recovering backups, it was right on target. We vetted 1.5 TBs of data and our entire DR plan in just two hours. That’s the same metric we use in SLAs for customers, which is phenomenal.”
Company: Roswell Park Cancer Center
Location: Buffalo, NY
Website: www.roswellpark.org
Business: Founded in 1989, Roswell Park is a comprehensive cancer care and research center that affords patients access to promising breakthroughs in cancer diagnostics, technologies, and therapies.
Challenge: Roswell Park conducts research on behalf of many large institutions through a variety of grants, and these customers require audits of the backup processes used to secure their data. Roswell Park needed to pass those audits and also provide automated, offsite backup for disaster recovery.
Solution: CyberFortress Managed Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) and CyberFortress Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaas), both powered by Veeam
Benefits: The CyberFortress solution was able to:
- Fulfill Roswell Park’s stringent customer requirements and meet SLAs
- Successfully integrate Veeam technology
- Automate offside backup and DR
- Protect 70 TB of data
- Prove capabilities in order to secure grants
- Recover 1.5 TB of data in just two hours
- Create a bullet proof DR plan supported at the highest levels
- Comply with stringent compliance requirements
“We have to pass stringent audits that require a great deal of information, such as the time and cost involved with IT, and it needs to be detailed.”
-Jonathan Kiddy
“The test delivered everything we expected, and when recovering backups, it was right on target. We vetter 1.5 TBs of data and our entire DR plan in just two hours. That’s the same metric we use in SLAs for customers, which is phenomenal..”
