PUEBLO COUNTY

The Pueblo County area has a long and varied history dating back to the sixteenth century. It became one of the 17 original counties in the Colorado Territory in 1861. Today, the County is the economic hub of Southeastern Colorado; a diverse and thriving community rich in arts and quality of life. Much like all counties across the country, Pueblo offers citizens a vast array of local government services, some available in person and others via a self-service website.

THE IT SITUATION

The IT department of nearly 40 staff includes seven experts primarily focused on Systems and Network. Three of them exclusively operate and maintain the government servers, software and security. Rachel Hernandez joined this team more than three years ago as the Systems Administrator. She and two colleagues spearhead oversight of nearly 44 terabytes of data with related data backup processes that essentially keep the government running 24/7. From court cases to child services to certificates of marriage and everything in between, the government data requires long periods of retention – some of it for seven years; some of it indefinitely. “We’re the backbone of everything,” Rachel explains. “We make sure that everyone – from employees to constituents – stays connected and that the equipment and data stay secure.”

THE CHALLENGE

When Rachel joined the County, a 12-year-old system of data storage, backup and retention was in place. It involved an outdated tape drive system with nearly 40 separate tapes with different county data, each with unique backup requirements. Some tapes necessitated nightly backup, while others followed a weekly, monthly or even quarterly schedule. The team utilized Veritas software, a data protection product designed for mixed physical and virtual environments. According to Rachel, “the entire backup process was a full-time job in itself.”

On top of this huge time commitment, data backup was error-prone. In many instances, the staff experienced difficulty locating the correct tape to restore certain files. She relayed how her team would often have to drive across town to locate a tape at another agency, ensure it was the correct one first then return to the courthouse to handle the data restore. “There was so much to handling what should have been a simple procedure.” If that was not enough, county agencies lacked a consistent approach to naming files, further complicating the process. “The whole tape and tape drive approach was simply archaic,” Rachel elaborates. “From my first day on the job, I knew we had to replace it with a more reliable and automated approach.”

THE SOLUTION

The whole IT team was on the same page about scrapping the antiquated approach. They sought a cloud-based solution so the inconvenience associated with physical tapes could be eliminated. They conferred with their partner CDW to identify and evaluate a number of third-party options including Druva, a SaaS platform for data protection across data centers, cloud applications, and endpoints. But after extensive research, the team ultimately chose the Rubrik platform. “Rubrik delivered the best of both worlds – a physical on-site backup system with a cloud-based off-premises, fail-safe component,” Rachel explained. In the process, the Pueblo team met Assured Data Protection, the company they chose to implement the Rubrik software as a managed service: “Rubrik as a Service” (RUaaS). “Having an outside group of Rubrik experts to handle the entire installation and setup was a tremendous plus, not to mention the ongoing management of it.”

Assured interfaces with Rubrik tech support on behalf of the Pueblo IT team if matters arise with software functionality. For example, when one specific agency data backup process kept timing out before completion, Assured and Rubrik experts immediately determined the cause and adjusted the cycle. “Once they changed the time, it worked beautifully,” she said. “It’s a good illustration of the value of the Assured folks to our ongoing backup and data recovery operation.” Rachel explains that Assured also provides her team with online training on various backup or restoration software functions, insights on useful Rubrik reports or dashboards and briefings on soon-to-be released compelling software features. “Most of all, our data backups are more effortless and definitely more reliable than ever before with the involvement of the Assured team.”

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