One night, an electrical fire struck a neighboring warehouse and quickly spread to the manufacturing customer's office. The fire department was unable to enter the building, soaking it with water from the exterior to subdue the flames. When the fire subsided, the owner of the manufacturing company entered to find their computers and servers sitting in four inches of water. This situation posed a significant risk to the company's data and operations, as their California office served as the data hub to their main filing system and work orders. Without a proper backup and disaster recovery solution, the manufacturer faced the potential loss of critical data and prolonged downtime.

Recently, CMG’s largest customer, an accounting firm, had a run in with ransomware during the worst possible time: tax season. Prior to the attack, CMG had moved the firm over from tape backup to the Datto SIRIS, a total data protection platform designed to deliver fast, automated backups and quick recovery times. Chris Guertin, owner of CMG, described a seamless transition over to the SIRIS and was able to back up all eight servers. As it turned out, Guertin had done so in the nick of time. When an employee clicked a link on a social media platform, suspicious activity began to occur, as users were being locked out of files. The ransomware virus did not trigger the firewall in place and the virus began encrypting all shared files on the accounting firm’s servers.

Protecting client data in the Canadian Arctic presents unique challenges due to extreme weather conditions, such as subzero temperatures, blizzards, and poor Internet connectivity. Great White North Technology Consulting Inc. (GWNTC) has expanded to support clients in Nunavut, where these harsh elements make data protection even more critical. One of their clients, a shipping management company in Rankin Inlet, faced significant risks with their older backup system, which only performed daily backups. The remote location of these clients means that on-site visits are not feasible in recovery scenarios, making a robust and reliable backup solution essential.

IMP Solutions needed to establish a reliable managed service provider (MSP) practice to serve the local small to midsized business market. They faced challenges in finding a trustworthy backup and disaster recovery (DR) vendor to ensure rapid recovery times and complete business continuity for their clients. The existing solutions used by their clients were either slow or incompatible with their infrastructure, leading to significant downtime and financial losses.

After experiencing substantial growth, primarily due to the acquisition of several other manufacturing plants, CLARCOR needed to consolidate multiple scattered data centers down to two: the primary at corporate headquarters and the secondary in Kentucky as a disaster recovery site. Mirazon recommended an enterprise backup software solution for these two sites to be jointly managed between CLARCOR’s internal IT and Mirazon engineers. However, CLARCOR also has nearly a dozen remote facilities with isolated servers and no local IT staff support. Additionally, the network bandwidth and costs made backing those servers up to the enterprise software solution unfeasible.

Early one morning, an accounting firm client of PCS found themselves unable to access any of their files. PCS quickly diagnosed the issue and discovered that a phishing email clicked on by two employees had let ransomware into their systems, instantly locking over 300,000 critical business files. This situation posed a significant threat to the firm's operations, especially given the sensitive client data and strict government deadlines they handle regularly. The ransomware attack could have resulted in major long-term damage, data loss, and operational disruption if not addressed promptly and effectively.

For one of MTM Computer Consulting's clients, a property management firm, a well-crafted phishing email bypassed multiple layers of security, including email security, DNS blocking service, and anti-virus software. The email contained a malicious zip file that, once downloaded, began encrypting files on both local and shared resources. The user who downloaded the file was unaware of the encryption process and shut down his laptop, leaving the ransomware to spread unnoticed. The attack compromised a folder containing 85,000 files crucial to the firm's Construction division. The situation was only discovered when another colleague reported issues accessing shared files, prompting MTM President Tim McCoy to investigate and identify the ransomware attack.

Originally, the non-profit was leveraging Dropbox for file storage and collaboration company-wide. However, the expensive pricing structure didn’t work for the growing business. Paying per user was not a feasible model. His managed service provider (MSP), who helps ease the burden and outsource some IT responsibilities, suggested he check out Datto Drive, a business-grade file sync and share solution that allows users to collaborate and share files. Datto Drive has a more flexible pricing model that fits the needs of their business.

Murphy Acquisitions, a small aircraft research and sales organization, faced a critical challenge when they experienced a power failure that caused their server to malfunction. The power failure occurred at 8:30 in the morning, and their battery backup system failed, leading to an issue with the operating system that prevented the server from booting up. This incident could have been devastating for Murphy Acquisitions, as they rely heavily on a specialized database to conduct their business globally. The inability to access their server resources posed a significant risk to their operations and data integrity.

Focus Data Solutions faced significant challenges in ensuring data restoration and business continuity for their clients in the event of a server crash. The existing tape-based and overly complex backup solutions were unreliable, making recovery nearly impossible and time-consuming, often taking days or weeks. This situation was untenable for their clients, who required a more efficient and reliable solution to manage their data and ensure business continuity.

DLC Technology Solutions, Inc. faced significant challenges in delivering enterprise-class backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solutions to their clients. Initially, they attempted to build their own BDR solution, but this approach was fraught with issues. The backup swaps were inconsistent, and the media was rarely taken off-site, posing a risk of data loss in the event of a physical disaster. Even when the media was taken off-site, the recovery process was too lengthy and complex. The DIY solution was laden with risks such as human error, hidden costs, physical loss if the backup was local, and lengthy recovery times if the backup was off-site. Darren Crane, the founder, admitted that the recovery process could take days, depending on various factors.

WingSwept had very specific needs in finding a new BDR vendor. Previous vendors they worked with did not deliver a uniform solution with a simple pricing structure. In addition, they wanted a solution with both local and off-site virtualization and multiple data centers.

Bardissi Enterprises faced a critical challenge when their existing backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution from Axcient failed, resulting in a complete data loss. This incident highlighted the unreliability of their current BDR solution, which was unacceptable for both their internal operations and their clients. The failure of the Axcient appliance, which did not back up virtual machines running on it, led to a significant data recovery cost of $10,000. This situation necessitated a search for a more robust, reliable, and cost-effective BDR solution to ensure data integrity and continuity for Bardissi and its clients.

A critical aspect of the Cyber Crime Technology (CCT) program is the ability for students to practice ethical hacking. In order to enable this in a safe environment, the Cape Fear Community College IT department gave the CCT program authority to create their own network with servers, virtual machines, and necessary equipment. The CCT team needed to create their own IT department to manage this network and the underlying infrastructure associated with it. As the team built out the network, they realized they needed a better way to manage and respond to issues regarding servers and virtual machines. Cape Fear Community College enables students through remote and distance learning. This added challenge for the CCT team means that they need to create and destroy “sandboxes” for their students and professors. These “sandboxes” are secure, safe environments for students and professors to play, educate, and discover real-world scenarios that graduates will encounter. These “sandboxes” are enabled through server farms and virtual machines enabled on the CCT IT network.

In the regulated cannabis industry, there are stringent requirements for security camera monitoring. Cameras must cover every square foot of the facility, operate 24/7, and retain footage for at least 90 days. Any downtime or malfunction can result in the facility losing its cannabis license. This makes the monitoring of these cameras crucial for compliance and business continuity. Additionally, security cameras are vital for protecting against theft, mitigating lawsuits, and preventing fraudulent insurance claims. However, most businesses do not proactively monitor these systems, leading to potential issues when the footage is needed.

SNA Displays has built a reputation around amazing displays and amazing service. In a digital world that never sleeps, displays must be running twenty-four hours a day and seven days every week. If a display goes down, revenues generated by the display go down with it. SNA Displays understands this and built an automated and proactive service model to address critical service needs with assistance from Domotz. Before the SNAPros can start designing and creating, the sales team needs to win that project. While SNA Displays’ reputation carries a lot of weight, customer demands are increasing, along with expectations of rapid response. The SNA Displays sales team built a sales solution around service, the very service that Domotz was providing the SNAPros.

For smaller businesses and education, hosted voice services are generally easy to set-up, but as the systems scale, the requirements for the network become more demanding. Managed Switches and back-up networks become critical when dealing with services that can be considered mission critical for any business. As these networks become more complex, customers are generally less aware of the ramifications of moving offices, or taking a “phone” from their desk and plugging it into another desk. SV&D’s team leverages Domotz to immediately understand when a phone is “disconnected” and when it appears, even if it was plugged into the wrong port. In the past, a phone connected to the wrong port would mean that the phone would not provision to the network properly. The customer would be frustrated, not understanding what they have done, and a phone call to SV&D would occur. This frustration was nearly eliminated through Domotz’s ability to monitor and immediately alert on changes in the system.

Access Networks recognized that their clients, while desiring robust enterprise-grade networks, often lacked the expertise and resources to manage these networks effectively. This gap in client capability posed a challenge for Access Networks, as their clients needed not only high-quality network installations but also ongoing management and rapid troubleshooting support. The company needed to find a way to extend their value proposition beyond just network design and installation to include efficient and proactive network management services.

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are increasingly tasked with protecting their clients' digital assets in a landscape where security threats are evolving rapidly. Traditional security measures are no longer sufficient, and the rise in ransomware demands, which have exceeded a billion dollars in the United States alone, highlights the need for more advanced solutions. The costs associated with repairing the damage from such attacks are nearly ten times the ransom amounts. This case study explores how one MSP, CyberPrivacy, has leveraged Domotz to enhance their cybersecurity measures and protect their clients effectively.

When deploying global networks, it’s important to be able to quickly identify what is on a customer’s network. During deployment and transition into steady state, it’s imperative to be able to quickly receive monitoring information related to critical IT infrastructure without having to take time to build and deploy complex monitoring tools. Additionally, there is a need to be able to monitor and report network performance from the end users’ perspective rather than from the core of the network where performance is generally quite good. Informatik Group looked to Domotz as a solution that would provide telemetry to address network performance issues before the client contacted them. While engaged with a private equity firm involved in the acquisition of several divisions of a multinational company in the oil & gas industry, Informatik Group needed to assume and deploy a global network remotely for 30 locations that were spread across six continents. What made this extremely challenging, is that the deployment had to occur within a 48-hour period and had to be implemented by a US-based team of network engineers working in shifts.

As Green Duck experienced continued growth, the company realised that it would require a more centralised solution for managing its customers' IT estates. Its current model of using a variety of disparate tools and systems from a number of different vendors was not sustainable and would not support the company's growth projections. As a result, the company embarked on an assessment of its processes and a comprehensive review of IT solutions and services which could help them to achieve business aims. The result was the deployment of Kaseya IT Systems Management Solution.

As a startup in the competitive MSP market, Spectrum Data Networks faced several challenges. They needed to establish an efficient and comprehensive service offering from the outset. Additionally, they had to enable non-sales professionals to be proficient in selling and working with clients. Another significant challenge was creating an efficient ticketing and problem resolution system to ensure high customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Since most K-12 IT teams are under budget and understaffed, Matthew originally tackled his job with open source tools. Soon he realized that he was using an unmanageable number of single point products for the different tasks he needed to accomplish. That’s when Matthew started browsing the Internet to find a better solution.

When it came to the security of the systems it runs, Crosskey had been outsourcing that aspect to an MSSP. But it was constantly challenged by the increasing amounts of log volumes - likely running into the millions of lines each day in a banking system environment. Coping with these log increases and doing it in a cost-effective way was becoming difficult with a third party service provider. Furthermore, as a service provider itself, Crosskey wanted to reduce the chain and amount of information being sent back and forth to a third party, thus helping its systems to achieve PCI DSS compliance. As a banking system provider with three datacentres and a lot of servers, it was becoming unfeasible to push all of the infrastructure logs to a third party for correlation. In addition, Crosskey did not want to lose the broad threat intelligence view its MSSP provided for detecting “known badness”, but equally it could not rely on an external partner any more to facilitate this, so the solution had to provide this intelligence.

Save Mart Supermarkets faced the growing threat of cyber attacks, recognizing that it was not a matter of 'if' but 'when' they would be breached. The company needed to shift its focus from pure prevention to detection and response planning to become a resilient organization capable of bouncing back quickly from attacks. The challenge was to keep security top of mind within the organization, share threat data, educate employees, and deploy the right tools to match the organization's needs. The goal was to have visibility into the enterprise, monitor traffic through servers before an attack happens, and react promptly when an attack occurs.

Cegeka was looking for a solution to better handle threat detection and incident response. They had not deployed a SIEM but were looking for SIEM or SIEM-like functionality for their environment. They needed a solution that could deliver effective threat intelligence and reduce the amount of work required to identify threats.

Randall & Quilter Investment holding was looking for a solution like AlienVault™ Unified Security Management™ (USM) to get a better handle on threat detection and incident response and to meet compliance requirements. Philip Clarke, Security Manager, at Randall and Quilter found that the threat intelligence delivered by AlienVault Labs helps to detect threats in their environment and reduces the amount of manpower required to do so. Other benefits Mr. Clarke found AlienVault USM had over the competition include: Ease of deployment and use, Incident response, Unified security solution, Affordability, Threat sharing capabilities through AlienVault Open Threat Exchange, AlienVault Labs Threat Intelligence for threat correlation and prioritization.

Afognak Native Corporation (Afognak) faced the challenge of needing a compliance solution that was both easy to maintain and cost-effective. The company required a robust system to detect threats and mitigate the risk of data theft. Given the scale of their operations, which span nearly 50 states and several territories and countries worldwide, the solution needed to be scalable and reliable. Afognak's existing solutions were either too complex or too expensive, making it difficult to achieve the desired level of security and compliance without incurring significant costs.

Sedara was looking for a comprehensive solution with a great value proposition to pass along to their clients and prospects. They evaluated other solutions from companies such as HP/ArcSight, Splunk, and McAfee. However, they needed a solution that could provide threat detection, affordability, feature completeness, and threat sharing and visibility through an open threat exchange.

TrustNet faced a significant challenge in finding a compliance solution that could be deployed quickly and efficiently. They had previously implemented a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system, but it proved to be too expensive and difficult to maintain. This created a pressing need for a more cost-effective and user-friendly solution that could still meet their stringent requirements for threat detection, incident response, and regulatory compliance. The complexity and high costs associated with their existing SIEM system were not sustainable, prompting TrustNet to seek an alternative that could offer a unified security solution without compromising on performance or compliance standards.