Multicloud backup solution adds to O365 security
The plans for migrating the university’s email servers to the Office 365 cloud were already set. Then an incident occurred that emphasised the importance of reliable backup. The new cloud solution was therefore complemented with local email backup, providing enhanced data protection and recovery capabilities.
Challenge
The University of Gothenburg had planned for a gradual migration of staff email to the cloud, beginning in first quarter of 2020, but this task was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And in September, before migration had commenced, the university’s email servers suffered a major outage that initially affected all employees. This malfunction was caused by multiple interacting factors, including a notorious bug in disk drive control middleware.
Solution
Software was the key element in Proact’s proposal, recommending Commvault’s platform for data protection and backup. This met the functional requirements, with the added advantage that it allowed the university to use its existing object storage solution (NetApp StorageGrid) for Office 365 backups. The university has used various NetApp systems for more than a decade (with hardware and support services provided by Proact) and these had no role in the previous email issues.
“ Previously, there were different opinions on the need for making our own backups from Office 365, but the learnings from the incident weighed in on our decision to obtain such a solution ”
