Partnership to protect NZ data centres from ransomware

Data platform VAST Data has announced that its high-capacity, all-flash platform was selected by Plan B to ensure its data centres remain operational regardless of a cyber attack, data loss, or security and networking issues.

Plan B, a New Zealand-based firm specialising in ICT and business continuity, manages data centres for medium to large businesses and enterprises. It also provides high-performance, in-country and cost-effective hybrid cloud and cloud object storage to other cloud service providers and integrators, including some of the largest Microsoft cloud partners in New Zealand.

With the rise in data breaches and data centre outages — Gartner expects at least 75% of IT organisations to face one or more ransomware attacks by 2025 — protecting clients’ core assets requires an infrastructure that fortifies data and keeps equipment safe. Plan B’s data centre also requires a high degree of flexibility to scale depending on the needs and goals of the business.

Plan B recognised that to fulfil its mission of ensuring its customers’ data is protected and has complete resiliency, it needed to update its storage devices. It also wanted a solution to facilitate its strategy of creating new and innovative products for its customers. Plan B turned to VAST Data to enable lightning-fast backups and restore performance in the event of an attack or outage.

VAST delivers petabyte-scale, all-flash storage applicable for wide-ranging applications, including backups and restores with the Veeam platform. VAST’s Universal Storage platform is designed to restore business-critical data and applications up to 50 times faster than legacy purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs). It can meet stringent recovery time objectives (RTOs) by providing eight times more restore performance at 40% lower cost than legacy backup targets and object stores.

Plan B is moving all its customer data to flash storage. VAST’s all-flash object storage platform delivers up to 100 Gb on the front and back end, enabling Plan B’s customers to retrieve archived data in seconds as opposed to days with legacy platforms. VAST’s Universal Storage disaggregated shared everything (DASE) architecture separates the storage function from compute, helping to drive performance and storage capacity.

“We found in VAST a partner that valued resilience as much as we do, enabling an S3aaS platform to remain operational under any circumstances,” said Diego Nievas, Director of Product and Technology Innovation, Plan B.

“We don’t have to worry about the platform at all — there is low-to-zero touch. VAST handles all our maintenance and service and firmware upgrades. This is a huge benefit for us as it can be hard to find resources.”

Universal Storage’s Indestructible Snapshots feature delivers the immutability essential to Plan B. Indestructible Snapshots safeguards data by preventing critical backup copies and snapshots from being altered or destroyed by any individual before their expiration date.

In the event of an attack, VAST’s platform allows Plan B to crawl through the data to find viruses, cryptolockers and ransomware.

“VAST allows us to restore quickly and make sure it’s correct … killing two birds with one stone,” Nievas said.

“With Universal Storage, we have flipped the switch on the capabilities of the data centre,” added Howard Fyffe, Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, VAST Data.

“With a powerful partner like VAST and our Universal Storage platform, Plan B is assured that it can protect its clients’ most valuable asset — their data. The affordability of our all-flash solution enables more companies to benefit from the highest levels of performance, scale, data protection and resiliency needed for today’s modern business environment.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Daniel Megias