Cloud-based backup for cloud-hosted data: Palacký University

Founded in 1573, Palacký University Olomouc is the second oldest university in the Czech Republic. But that doesn’t mean that it relies on outdated technology to support its educational mission and the 30,000 students that it serves today.

Petr Volak, the university’s Head of IT Infrastructure, was quick to see the benefits of migrating to the Microsoft 365 productivity suite. He understood the gains to be had from handing off management of email and data storage and freeing up IT resources to address tasks that drive the university’s core mission.

But he and his team were under no illusions about the need for data protection beyond that provided by Microsoft’s native data-retention policies and capabilities. Indeed, he noted that Microsoft’s own documentation recommends the use of a third-party backup solution for data stored in Microsoft 365.

Because Palacký University had suffered a number of successful ransomware attacks in previous years — and knowing that educational institutions continued to be very heavily targeted by ransomware criminals — Petr was not about to take any chances on being unable to recover data should it be compromised by an attack or accidentally deleted by staff or students.

Legacy solution drawbacks

The university initially decided to invest in a third-party backup solution from IBM. It quickly became apparent that this solution was far from ideal. It was slow. It was vulnerable to modern ransomware’s ability to detect and compromise backup files. Its cost structure made it remarkably expensive to operate.

In addition to all this, it required Petr’s team to keep and manage a physical backup appliance on-premises — which seemed to defeat at least part of the purpose of moving to Microsoft 365 in the first place.

Moving to cloud-based backup

Dissatisfied with what they had in place, Petr and his team approached Barracuda, whose products they were already familiar with. And once they saw a demo of Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup, they knew they’d found what they needed.

It’s faster than the IBM solution, despite backing up much more data. It uses encryption and other techniques to ensure ransomware can’t find or compromise backup files. It’s considerably more affordable. And because it doesn’t involve any on-site hardware, it saved the team an hour’s work every week.

“It’s a weapon you just fire and forget. It’s simple, and it just works in two or three clicks of a mouse, which is exactly what you want. Before, we had to maintain a storage solution on-premises. Now we don’t need to do anything except for a quick monthly check, or when someone wants to restore their files.”

— Petr Volak

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