Ruchi Tandon
September 11, 2023
Looking to protect your workloads in the event of a disaster and strengthen disaster recovery? You’re not alone. Here’s how organizations are using VMware Cloud on AWS for their disaster recovery needs. In this blog, I am going to share some of the recent customer stories on disaster and ransomware recovery use case.
But before that, I want to highlight our VMware Cloud on AWS customer panel at VMware Explore Las Vegas 2023. During this panel, our esteemed customers and partners (S&P Global Ratings and Converge Technology Solutions) shared the transformative impact they’ve experienced after migrating workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS within their organizations. It was truly inspiring to witness firsthand the positive changes brought about by this innovative hybrid cloud service. In case you missed attending the live session, don’t worry. Check out this on-demand session and hear it directly from the customers and partners how VMware Cloud on AWS helped them accelerate their cloud transformation initiative.
Also, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8 of this blog series for more customer stories across various use cases.
Now, let’s check out some the customer stories in Disaster and Ransomware Recovery space.
USE CASE: DISASTER RECOVERY
VanEck
VanEck Streamlines Recovery From Modern Ransomware with VMware
Founded in 1955, VanEck is a global investment manager with offices around the world. Today, VanEck offers active and passive strategies with compelling exposures supported by well-designed investment processes. The firm’s capabilities range from core investment opportunities to more specialized exposures to enhance portfolio diversification.
Before using VMware Ransomware Recovery, VanEck relied on the restore capabilities of an outdated backup solution for ransomware recovery. The approach was scattered and required shifting between products to recover. This process consumed valuable IT resources and made the recovery long and unpredictable.
After implementing VMware Ransomware Recovery, this solution helped VanEck cut costs and save FTE hours to better allocate IT resources. The team at VanEck no longer had to build, secure and manage the Isolated Recovery Environment themselves. Using VMware Ransomware Recovery, the team replaced an error-prone recovery process with streamlined recovery at scale.
Here is what VanEck has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Previously, recovery was complicated and time-consuming. Now, everything is seamless and orchestrated. I have yet to see a recovery product for ransomware that works as well as VMware.”
– Alaa Elbanna, Global Director, IT Infrastructure, VanEck
Watch this video to check out VanEck’s success story.
Reily Foods Company
Reily Foods Company Uses VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery to Protect IT Operations at the Southern Foodmaker
Reily Foods Company (Reily Foods) is a 5th-generation, family-owned food and beverage company. Since 1902, they’ve helped to define the food and beverage flavors of the American South. Reily Foods is proud of their New Orleans heritage, which continues to shape the way they make their products and the way they believe in doing business.
Initially, Reily Foods disaster recovery (DR) strategy was to use the New Orleans and Knoxville facilities as DR locations for each other. Reily Foods quickly realized that they didn’t want to keep investing in premium data center hardware that would only be used in a disaster. Add to that the network complexity and capacity needed between sites and momentum started to build for a cloud-based solution. And that’s when Ben Cooper, their Director of Infrastructure & Security, found VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR).
To diversify Reily Foods ecosystem for resiliency, Cooper looked at several other public cloud providers. “VMware Cloud on AWS seemed to be a better fit.” After that the whole disaster recovery project came together for Reily Foods with familiar, trusted, reliable products.
With VMware Cloud DR in place, Reily Foods knows that their critical infrastructure can be served by an RPO (Recovery Point Objective) as low as 30 minutes. Their staff can leverage existing skills and this setup integrates with related technologies already in use at Reily Foods while projecting lower operational costs.
Here is what Reily Foods has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Knowing that I have copies of my infrastructure in the cloud, and that I have the capability to add ransomware recovery in the future is a plus. So far, it’s a great solution that could help a lot of people who are looking to do what we did, which is save money on disaster recovery. We leverage the cloud OpEx model and save money by avoiding an ongoing investment in expensive on-premises equipment that will only be used in the off chance of a disaster.”
– Ben Cooper, Director of Infrastructure, Reily Foods
Learn more about Reily Foods’ success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Fozzy Group
Fozzy Group Protects IT Operations in War Zone using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS
Fozzy Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Ukraine and one of the leading Ukrainian retailers, with over 700 grocery outlets and convenience stores throughout the country.
They wanted to eliminate disruption threats (in supplying groceries and goods to its customers) as the Russian war on Ukraine continues. So, the Fozzy Group decided to adopt cloud for disaster recovery in the event of natural or wartime disruptions. They also wanted to replace disparate systems loosely coupled to serve as protection from a disaster that made it hard to test the recovery plan as well as integrate with their existing VMware infrastructure.
Fozzy Group decided to put in place disaster recovery in the cloud using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) with VMware Cloud on AWS to achieve low RPOs and RTOs for mission critical workloads. By deploying this setup, the team at VMware helped the customer protect itself against the elevated threat of data center disruption in time of war with VMware Cloud DR’s ransomware capabilities.
With time being of the essence, their implementation was complete in just over 2 weeks with VMware’s deployment expertise. Additionally, they are able to support RTO and RPO of as little as few hours for the most critical systems and 24 hours for the less critical ones. Fozzy Group was also able to replicate and host hundreds of terabytes in the cloud in a secure manner supported by VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS.
Here is what the customer has to say about their experience of using the product:
“After implementing VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery, I certainly sleep much better.”
– Ivan Slavioglo, Vice President of IT, Fozzy Group
Read more about Fozzy Group’s experience using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Vente-unique
Vente-unique Ensures Business Continuity with VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Cloud on AWS
Vente-unique is the leading online retailer of furniture, home furnishings and decorations in France and throughout Europe. Founded in 2006, the company has grown quickly in France and across Europe. Today, Vente-unique operates in 11 European countries, with 2 million customers served so far and bringing in 160 million euros in sales revenue in 2022.
The Vente-unique warehouse is 860,000 square feet spread over 13 storage cells and they employ 300 people mainly working in receiving, storage and dispatch. Their entire warehouse is computerized, and the warehouse operates 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. With an exclusively online sales business and a growing volume of traffic, Vente-unique was particularly vulnerable in the event of a system failure. A disaster like that would bring 300 employees to a standstill, clients left unserved, empty lorries leaving the warehouse. To protect its reputation, which is built on trust and customer satisfaction, Vente-unique wanted to ensure that its operations run smoothly and without interruption.
The team at Vente-unique needed a disaster recovery plan to guarantee client satisfaction and delivery times. After some back and forth with VMware and AWS, they chose VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) on VMware Cloud on AWS to implement a fast and secure disaster recovery plan and ensure the protection and full recovery of its critical workloads in the event of a disaster. The implementation went well and within two weeks, they setup a cloud backup system with the help of VMware and AWS partner, Metanext. This setup with VMware Cloud DR would allow Vente-unique to resume activity in under 4 hours in the event of a warehouse system failure.
Here is what Vente-unique has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Thanks to the combined benefits of VMware and AWS, we are now able to recover from an outage in less than four hours. Indeed, our customers will no longer have the risk of being impacted in the reception date of their parcels and we will continue to respect our promises.”
– Grégory Schurgast, CTO, Vente-unique
Watch Vente-unique’s success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Woche-Pass AG
Woche-Pass AG Drives Business Resilience and Prepares for a Scalable Future
Woche-Pass AG (Woche-Pass) is a media house in Sursee, Switzerland. It originally launched as a print shop in 1975 and today, the company runs a successful website plus two weekly printed publications and digital guides.
Before moving to the cloud, the customer faced some challenges like disruptive DR testing, which led to infrequent testing. Further, the changes to the production site were not always deployed to DR site and the existing DR solution did not work properly during a real DR event which resulted in Woche-Pass almost missing a print deadline. Besides, they had limited IT resources available.
By moving to VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery with VMware Cloud on AWS, the customer attained rapid response to disaster recovery, achieved frequent testing and continuous health checks and was able to protect production with limited in-house resources.
Here is what Woche-Pass has to say about their experience of using the product:
“If a real disaster situation occurs, we are confident that we’ll be live with the disaster recovery site within a short time.”
– Adrian Hess, CEO – Woche-Pass
Learn more about Woche-Pass AG’s success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Publiacqua
Publiacqua Improves Infrastructure Resilience with Cloud-based Disaster Recovery using VMware Cloud on AWS
The Italian municipal utility operator Publiacqua manages integrated water services for the provinces of Florence, Prato, Pistoia and Arezzo.
They wanted to improve the resilience of their infrastructure through disaster recovery service in the cloud. They also wanted to build strong levels of IT governance to ensure operational continuity as well as ensure GDPR compliance. Additionally, Publiacqua wanted to identify a solution that was sustainable from technical and economic perspective.
They decided to build disaster recovery directly in the cloud using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) with VMware Cloud on AWS. Doing so, Publiacqua attained a more responsive, scalable and resilient IT architecture and reliable disaster recovery service as well as strengthened their business continuity models.
Publiacqua also freed up their IT architects from operational management to focus on capacity management, application integration, and data exchange methods. This also allowed the IT team to update and improve their skillset while tackling the project with tools and technologies they already knew.
Here is what Publiacqua has to say about their experience of using the product:
“The possibility of integrating VMware Cloud on AWS allowed us to tackle the project with tools and technologies we already knew.”
– Mauro Cacciafani, Architecture, Risk and Security Manager, Publiacqua
Learn more about Publiacqua’s experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS in this case study.
Merrick & Company
Merrick & Company Protects Digital Assets from Ransomware using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS
Merrick & Company (Merrick) is an employee-owned engineering, architecture, surveying, and geospatial firm headquartered in Greenwood Village, CO, USA. They wanted to move to cloud-based infrastructure to protect digital assets from ransomware in addition to being able to integrate with their existing VMware infrastructure.
The customer decided to implement cloud-based disaster recovery through VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery with VMware Cloud on AWS so that they would be ransomware and disaster protected. With this setup, Merrick was able to achieve RPO of 30 min, down from 4 hours previously. As part of this setup, they also integrated with existing VMware infrastructure at Merrick, and used the cloud as a failover target.
Here is what Merrick & Company has to say about their experience of using the product:
“It’s just a few clicks on the VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery console to enable protection for additional virtual machines. I can modify the schedules so that we control when protection takes place, for example weekly, daily, or even every few hours.”
– Brian Whiting, Merrick IT Organization
Check out the case study to learn more about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS.
What’s Next:
Start protecting your workloads with VMware Cloud on AWS. Now, you can sign up for the free trial of VMware Cloud on AWS and try out the migration yourselves for free for the first 30 days. Also check out how VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Ransomware Recovery can help you in your DR needs. And meanwhile, if you would like to learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS, here are more learning resources for you:
Resources for VMware Cloud on AWS
- Learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS on our website or by viewing the VMware Cloud on AWS: Overview.
- Obtain the VMware Cloud on AWS Solution Brief and VMware Cloud on AWS TCO 1-pager.
- Leverage the new VMware Cloud on AWS Techzone for curated technical articles, guides, videos, documentation and more.
- Listen to the latest episodes of the VMware Cloud on AWS Unplugged Podcast.
- Try the VMware Cloud on AWS Lightning Lab for a first-hand immersive experience.
- Follow us on Twitter @vmwarecloudaws and give us a shout with #VMWonAWS.
- Read our latest VMware Cloud on AWS blogs.
- Follow the VMware Cloud on AWS release notes on continuing updates.
- Watch informative demos, overview videos, webinars and hear from our customers on the VMware Cloud on AWS on YouTube channel.
Ruchi Tandon
Ruchi is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware Inc. With 14+ years of strong technology, data, and marketing background, Ruchi brings deep experience in…