Town of Christiansburg

What started as a collection of taverns and rest stops along the Great Wilderness Road has grown into the New River Valley’s retail hub, pairing brand-name shopping and dining with locally-owned eateries and boutiques. Christiansburg is a place of past and present, with historic neighborhoods and innovative business and development existing side by side.

In 2017 the IT leadership at the Town knew that they needed to make some improvements to their data protection strategy.  To ensure that they wouldn’t just be reviewing the usual data backup suspects they decided to issue a solutions RFP.  One of the recipients of the RFP was ABS Technologies, one of the most well-respected regional solutions providers in the mid-Atlantic.  ABS, an existing Rubrik reseller, had just entered their White Label program enabled by Assured Data Protection.  Sensing that the RFP, specifically requesting an “as a Service” approach, was a perfect use case for Assured’s unique capabilities, they reached out to collaborate on a response.

“At the time our data protection strategy was in need of updating.  Tape was still in our world; we were vulnerable to ransomware and were in need of a better offsite and disaster recovery capabilities.  Additionally we were then, as we remain today, a small IT staff so not only finding a new solution, but a service partner to help us operate on a day to day basis, was an imperative”

Craig Hatmaker, Director of IT, Town of Christiansburg, Virginia

Caitie Sloan, ABS’s Account Manager for the Town had this to say about the RFP process:

“We found that the Town’s requirements fit neatly into Assured’s capabilities.  Working with Assured on the response was easy.  They were able to provide responses to the Town’s questions quickly from their existing service descriptions and security certifications.  Responding to the RFP was a breeze because together, we met all of the criteria.”

ABS’s White Label response not only met 100% of the technical requirements but was also 38% under budget thanks to Assured’s operational expense consumption models that allows customers to pay monthly for the data protection capacity they consume, as they actually consume it.  The approach also met the Town’s requirement of keeping contractual commitments to one year only.

Fast forward to today, we find the Town of Christiansburg on the other side of multiple annual renewals and a happy customer of ePlus, who acquired ABS in March of 2020 and is now a member of the Rubrik/Assured White Label program.  “I came on board after the RFP award process and my first thought was to look to internalize the Rubrik as a Service solution.  However, once I came to understand the value not only economically but from an operational perspective of Assured’s delivery model, I gladly endorsed sticking with the program” says Craig Hatmaker.

Eric Vaught, Network Systems Administrator for the Town had this to say about support through e/Plus and Assured: “They’re there when I need them, 24/7, no matter what the problem.  The Rubrik solution rarely fails, it is the environment that it lives in that causes disruption in day to day backup activity.  Assured’s monitoring capabilities mean they alert me when there is a failure versus the responsibility resting with me to review some report or log into a console.  They are adept at guiding me through the troubleshooting process when we encounter a problem.  The result is that individual job success percentages are high, time to resolution is quicker, and the entire process takes up less amounts of my time, freeing me to work on projects that are directly related to the mission of the Town.”

Rubrik as a Service from Assured Data Protection

At the onset of the RFP process Rubrik was a known commodity to the Town of Christiansburg IT staff.  Their reputation as being a disruptor in the data protection space, offering scale out architecture, ease of use, and ransomware mitigation made them a natural contender to upgrade the Town’s data protection solution. “We were concerned about the price points, necessity for a second site to provide redundancy and off-site disaster recovery,” mentions Eric. “The response from ABS and Assured addressed all of that. We got the best of both worlds.”

At Assured Data Protection, our senior leadership team draws on over 100 years of collective data protection experience making us experts in our field. It is this expertise that sets us above other service providers and software suppliers and what motivates us to offer the best experience possible and protect the data for a plethora of companies.

The Future for Town of Christiansburg and Assured Data Protection

Knowing that their data is secure and being managed by a dedicated team of professionals has put Craig and Eric’s mind at ease and allowed them to focus on other aspects of the business that are directly related to achieving the strategic goals of the Town.